The building of the center started in the summer of 2000 and has been completed recently with all the state-of-art facilities operating for frontiers research in the areas of materials science, high-pressure physics and geophysics with many cross-disciplinary linkages to programs in metallurgy, ceramics and chemistry.
CeSMEC Goals
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Scientific goalsUse theoretical and experimental tools of CeSMEC to study terrestrial planetary interiors by studying the physical and chemical interactions among solids and fluids at extreme conditions Build and maintain a superdatabase on inorganic materials to explore regularities of physical and chemical behavior and develop semi-empirical models to understand the physics and chemistry of materials | Engineering goalsSynthesize new materials with unusual properties and improve the existing materials Unusual properties may require unusual chemical and physical conditions | |||
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Technology developmentReach the highest static pressures in hot materials for in situ x-ray and spectroscopic characterization with precise simultaneous determination of pressure and temperature Reach the highest temperatures in the laboratory with precise measurement of temperatures | ||||
Why is the CeSMEC unique?
In the State of Florida , CeSMEC is the only high pressure research center where materials can be studied at extremes of pressure and temperatures (see below):
X-ray diffraction |
Raman Spectroscopy |
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Pressure .0001- 500,000 atm |
Temperature 300- 3000 K |
Combined to 300,000 atm T:300-1500 K |
Pressure .0001-3 Million atm |
Temperature 300-1300 K |
Combined P to 300,000 atm T:300-1500 |
High P and T Imaging |
Reactions and thermophysics |
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| Pressure .0001-3 Million atm | Temperature 300- 3000 K |
Combined P to 300,000 atm T:300-1500 K |
Laser heating and ablation Several 1000 K |
Combined P to 3Million atm T to 4000 K Laser |
Combined P to 3Million atm and T to1300 K (electric) |
CeSMEC's Research Projects
International Materials Institute: National Science Foundation sponsored International Materials Institute in the emerging field of Combinatorial Materials Science and Materials Informatics. The Combinatorial Sciences and Materials Informatics Collaboratory (CoSMIC) is an international research and education center promoting the use of informatics and combinatorial experimentation for materials discovery and design.
Development of high pressure-temperature technology : CeSMEC is aiming at reaching extreme conditions of pressure and temperature with precise measurements of physical properties and determination of structural states. We are perfecting both resistive heating cells for high pressure studies and the laser-heating techniques for high-temperature and/or high-pressure synthesis of materials.
Microchip Nanoceramic Lasers : The goal of this project is to create monolithic microchip nanoceramic laser structures. These structures will contain two parts: an active medium and the saturable absorber. The basic monolithic microchip laser is made from one piece of gain material. Saturable absorber is passive Q-switch for obtaining short and high power pulses. Microchip lasers are capable of of high output power (several KW under pulsed condition) from very small device. Microchip lasers can be cost-effectively mass-produced.
The applications are numerous:
• Collision-avoidance systems
• Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy
• Monitoring of effluents
• Ultraviolet laser-induced fluorescence spectroscopy
• Micromachining
• Microsurgery
• Dermatology
• Non-destructive testing
• Photolithography
• Visible laser pointers
• Laser projection displays
Doping diamonds: To discover and develop new diamond-based materials and technologies for broad field of applications ranging from high-speed electronics through sensors to energy storage.
Why diamond?
• Diamond has the highest thermal conductivity among materials and therefore offers the highest heat dissipation efficiency during high-power operation.
• Diamond chips can work at a temperature of up to 1,000 degrees Celsius, while silicon chips stop working above 150 degrees Celsius. This property means that diamond chips can work at a much higher frequency or faster speed and be placed in a high-temperature environment, such as a vehicle's engine.
Diamond exhibits a very high breakdown electric field, which means diamond devices can operate at extremely high voltage. It can resist voltages up to around 200 volts, compared to around 20 volts for a silicon chip. This means power electronics, such as an inverter, can become much smaller in size. At present, a large number of silicon chips are used together to handle high voltages which makes devices large.
• In addition, the carriers in diamond have a high mobility and a high saturation drift velocity, which make high-frequency and high-speed operation possible.
• Flat panel display electrodes based on diamond can also release more electrons, and the life span of devices using diamond electrodes can be double or longer than the equivalent with silicon silicon as the base for super fast, high voltage semiconductors.
• In fact, from device figures of merit calculated from the physical properties of high-frequency high-power devices diamond is the best among semiconductors and can therefore be called "ultimate semiconductor".
Problem:
A four-millimeter-square diamond substrate costs several hundreds of dollars compared to virtually nothing for silicon. Another problem is that electricity cannot travel smoothly through diamond. Thus, engineers are seeking impurities which can be added to aid electricity flow. Until now, the growth of high-quality diamond thin film had been impossible because of the formation of numerous crystalline defects and impurities during growth.
There exists a good body of evidence that a diamond lattice can accommodate a large concentration of small atoms, which propagate in the environment of saturated sp3 bonds by mechanisms of diffusion and quantum tunneling.
The Diamond Anvil Cell technique when combined with laser heating provides exceptional possibilities for
modifying the electrical, optical, thermal, and mechanical properties of a diamond by doping.
Synthesis, Compressibility and Thermal Expansion of Max-Phases:
Layered ternary carbides, such as Ti 3 SiC 2 , are of significant interest because they are elastically stiff, electrically and thermally conductive, similar to the stoichiometric carbides, but in contrast are readily machinable and relatively soft. These materials are lightweight and made from relatively inexpensive raw materials. Some of them are exceptionally thermal shock and damage tolerant, strong at high temperatures, oxidation, corrosion and creep resistant.
These properties would be ideal in future high-performance applications such as jet engines for aircraft. Current engine technology (such as the 100-inch-diameter PW4000 at right, developed in the early 1990s and used in Airbus A330 wide-bodied twinjets) is limited by materials failure at high temperatures. Lighter materials and engines that could operate at higher temperatures would provide immense benefits in cost savings and fuel efficiency.
(From Barsoum, Scientific American).
We have determined the thermal expansion and bulk modulus of a number of phases and are proceeding to synthesize phases at high pressure and temperature that have not been successfully synthesized at normal conditions.
Compressibility and Yield Strength of Carbides and nitrides
Using analysis of the X-ray diffraction data, we have launched on determining the yield strength of several classes of oxides, nitrides and carbides.
• Superdatabase : CeSMEC is developing an integrated materials database of thermal, physical and engineering properties of materials. The goal here is to seek systematics in the behavior of solid properties. The database has currently about 3000 solids with entries of about 50 properties.
• Thermodynamics database and calculations : Computation of equilibrium and non-equilibrium geophysical and industrial processes.
• New materials synthesis : Physical phase transformations and chemical interactions as determined by heating the solids under various conditions of pressure and stress.
• Iron : Earth's core and the core-mantle interaction.
• Hydrogen project : Chemical reaction synthesis of hydrogen.
• Silicon project : The chemistry of silicon production.
• Carbon project : Despite the vast number of efforts, many aspects of carbon remain unexplored.
• Nanomaterials : Our emphasis is on understanding the physics and chemistry of nanomaterials.
• Pressure-Volume-Temperature Equation of State of solids : An effort to obtain formulations and data for geophysical applications.
Research Collaboration
Our research has very wide applications that transcend the fields of physics, chemistry and materials science. CeSMEC has established colaborations with national and international scientist on several projects, such as:
• Superdatabase project and modeling
• Experimental Study of Materials at high-temperatures and/or high pressures