Extension of thermophysical and thermodynamic property measurements by laser pulse heating up to 10,000 K. I. Under pressure

Abstract

The necessity for increased high-temperature data reliability and extension of thermophysical property measurements up to 5000 K and above are discussed. A new transient-type laser-autoclave technique (LAT) has been developed to extend density and heat capacity measurements of high-temperature multicomponent systems far beyond their melting and boiling points. Pulsed multibeam laser heating is performed in an autoclave under high inert gas pressure to eliminate evaporation. The spherical samples are positioned by containment-free acoustic levitation regardless of their conductive or magnetic properties. Temperature, spectral and total emittances are determined by a new microsecond six-wavelength pyrometer coupled to a fast digital data acquisition system. The density is determined by high resolution microfocus X-ray shadow technique. The heat capacity is obtained from the cooling rate. Further applications are a combination of the laser-autoclave with splat cooling techniques for metastable structure synthesis and amorphous metals research and an extension of the LAT for the study of critical phenomena and the measurement of critical-point temperatures.