This past weekend I had the opportunity to assist my friend Allison Pease with her mineral physics research at Argonne National Laboratory! We spent about three days running around the facility collecting data from x-ray emission spectroscopy for through Allison’s compositions. Allison works with diamond anvils (DACs) which are two diamonds that are pushed together with a very small amount of iron nickel composition between them. When the diamonds are pressed together the sample is able to reach very high pressures. For these experiments, we reached about 60 GPa. That’s 60,000 times the pressure you are experiecing right now!!! The goal of this project was to simulate the conditions of the Earth’s mantle and core, to see at what conditions an iron nickel composition starts to have electrons change energy levels (spin transition).
