High-pressure cell for pressures up to 8 kbar designed for x-ray absorption measurements

Abstract
We have designed a cell for x-ray absorption work at hydrostatic pressures up to 8 kbar using liquids or gases as a pressure medium. This allows a very accurate pressure determination of ±8 bar. The two x-ray windows of the cell consist of Be plates with a thickness of 3 mm. The windows have a cross section of 1×10 mm2. Therefore, the decrease of the signal/noise ratio using this high-pressure cell compared with a measurement without the cell is of the order of 3 for x-ray energies higher than 10 keV or 10 for energies of about 6 keV.