MELTING CRITERIA AND IMAGING SPECTRORADIOMETRY IN LASER-HEATED DIAMOND-CELL EXPERIMENTS

As a step toward resolving current discrepancies among ultrahigh-press ure melting curves obtained with the laser-heated diamond cell, we cri tically evaluate two aspects of the experiments that require further e xamination: (i) the criteria used to detect that melting has taken pla ce, and (ii) the methods employed for measuring spatially variable tem peratures. A review of recent efforts illustrates how defining reliabl e melting criteria remains problematical in many experiments, whereas current and prospective advances in imaging spectroradiometry can yiel d robust methods for determining the temperature distribution within t he laser-heated diamond cell.