Diamond Anvil Cells

The Diamond Anvil Cell: principle

The general principal is as follows: a diamond is glued on a hard backing plate (usually made of tungsten carbide) and placed in metalic part called the piston. The second diamond also glued on a backing plate is placed in the couterpart called the cylinder. The piston slides in the cyldiner to bring the two diamonds in contact. Small screws allows to align both diamond tips and aslo their parallelity. Finally a metallic gasket that contain the sample is placed bewteen the two diamonds, and pressure is generated using either screws or a gas membrane to squeeze both diamond together and increse the pressure.