Diffraction studies of supercooled melts of Zr-based metal alloys

D20 is a very high intensity neutron 2-axis diffractometer equipped with a large micro-strip detector. Due to the extremely high neutron flux, it opens up new possibilities for real-time experiments on very small samples.

The video below was shot during experiment 6-03-400, in July 2010. The target of the experiment was diffraction studies of supercooled melts of Zr-based metal alloys. The video shows the setup of a novel electrostatic levitation furnace coupled with laser heating and levitation of a ZrNi sample. In this device samples are processed under high vacuum conditions. This setup avoids all risks of chemical contamination by the walls of a crucible or by an external heating element. Due to the high vacuum conditions compared with other levitation techniques it also enables very deep supercooling of the samples. Decoupling of levitation and heating allows for the study of highly-reactive alloys with a relatively low melting point.

Ref.: D. Holland-Moritz, F. Kargl, T. Kordel, T. Hansen (2010) to be published.