NEW APPLICATIONS OF THE PARIS-EDINBURGH CELL: NEUTRONS AND X-RAYS S. Klotz, Physique des Milieux Condensés, Université P&M Curie, 4 Place Jussieu, B77, F-75252 Paris.

Until recently, the devices needed to compress large volume samples to pressures beyond 10 GPa were large and cumbersome. The development of the Paris-Edinburgh cell, which provides a thrust of 250 tonnes and has a mass of only 50 kg, thus represents a considerable reduction in size over comparable large-volume pressure cells. Equipped with two opposed anvils made of either tungten carbide or sintered diamond it will compress samples of up to ~ 300 mm³ in volume to 6 GPa or ~ 30 mm³ to 25 GPa. Originally designed for high pressure neutron powder diffraction, its compact size gives it advantages for a wide range of applications in both crystallography and solid state sciences. We give an overview of experiments which illustrates the potential of these techniques, covering: (1) Neutron powder diffraction to 25 GPa on solid, liquid and gaseous samples at ambient and low temperature on spallation sources, (2) inelastic neutron scattering on single crystals to 10 GPa on reactor sources, (3) in-situ x-ray powder diffraction at high temperatures to 1000 deg.C and 6 GPa, (4) in-situ EXAFS on solid and molten semiconductors at high temperatures and high pressures (5) density measurements by x-ray absorption experiments. We will also discuss current developments of cells with larger/smaller capacity and its future applications.