Abstract
A relatively simple and reliable gasket insulation technique for electrical feedthroughs in the Diamond Anvil Cell has been successfuly developed. This involved the use of, easy to use components such as epoxy resins which can be easily obtained, and, the use of simple equipment which are part of any reasonably equiped laboratory. Photoconductivity, demonstrator, experiments on strained layer quantum well material were successfully used to prove the feasibility of these techniques. The pressure coefficient values obtained for strained InGaAs/GaAs, InGaAs/AlGaAs and unstrained InGaAs/InGaAsP were in agreement with that obtained with a photoluminescence technique. Unlike photoluminescence it is also possible to obtain the pressure coefficients of higher energy states with the photoconductivity experiment. In the process, laminated gaskets for electrical measurements were also developed. This has led to a tremendous improvement in the experimental reliability to such an extent that the electrical feedthroughs have become almost as routine as the optical experiments. Further, it is now possible to use ordinary optically cut anvils to conduct electrical feedthroughs without resorting to specially designed ones, such as rounded or multiple bevelled anvils, or, even depositing permanent conducting strips onto the diamond culets. The benefits of this is that obtaining ordinary cut anvils is much simpler than obtaining specialist bevelled or rounded edge anvils.