Hydrostatic pressure
Laboratory

The laboratory specializes in optical measurements of semiconductors at both room temperature and cryogenic temperatures under high hydrostatic pressure. The research uses non-contact spectroscopic techniques such as photoluminescence (PL), photoreflection (PR), reflection (R), and absorption (A), which provide information about the nature of optical transitions in the studied material.

The laboratory is equipped with devices for generating and controlling extremely high hydrostatic pressures based on two types of pressure cells. The first type are liquid piston-cylinder chambers designed for a range up to 2 GPa, known as “Unipress” chambers after their place of manufacture (IWC PAN Warsaw). Their relatively low maximum working pressure is compensated by the huge advantage of a large working space, which allows testing of samples with a diameter of 5 mm (or the longest diagonal). Another type of apparatus is the Diamond Anvil Cell (DAC), which, depending on the characteristic size of the diamonds (Culet), can reach up to 100 GPa (for Culet Size 300 µm). DAC chambers require special sample preparation, which means that samples must be very small, approximately 1/3 the size of a culet, which in practice means approximately 100-200 µm, and very thin, approximately 10-20 µm. This also requires proper preparation of the gaskets. The laboratory has all the necessary tools to conduct optical research under high hydrostatic pressures.