X-ray diffraction from levitated liquids

The ability of containerless techniques to access very high liquid temperat ures, maintain specimen purity, enable control of specimen chemistry and ac cess the supercooled state has created new opportunities to study high-temp erature liquids with a very high degree of control. Recently, these have be en combined with x-ray diffraction at synchrotron sources to provide struct ural information not previously available. This article reviews and summari zes recent results obtained from x-ray diffraction on levitated liquid mate rials in both the normal and supercooled states. In particular, it addresse s the effects of supercooling on the short-range structure, including inter atomic distances and coordinations, of several high-temperature molten oxid es, semiconductors and metallic materials. The properties of these liquids are discussed in the context of available molecular dynamics simulations an d thermophysical property data.