PRESS-MAG-O: A new facility to probe materials and phenomena under extreme conditions

In the recent years, several experiments performed under high magnetic fields (HMFs), at high pressure (HP) and/or at low temperature (LT) have led to spectacular discoveries in condensed matter. In many new systems, although challenging, it is strategic to perform a magneto-optical analysis, to investigate the phonon behavior in the far infrared (IR) domain. By combining HMF and HP in a wide temperature (T) range to perform concurrently IR magneto-optics and ac-magneto-dynamic experiments, it will be possible to achieve unique information on systems and/or new phenomena, almost impossible to obtain with standard spectroscopic methods. Here we present PRESS-MAG-O, a new facility under construction that will perform HP experiments under HMF in a wide T range. The system is expected to be operational by the end of 2008 and will be tested at SINBAD, the IR synchrotron radiation beamline operational since 2001 at DAΦNE (Double Annular Φ-factory for Nice Experiments), the storage ring of the INFN Frascati National Laboratory (LNF). While for IR experiments an interferometer will be used, for the magneto-dynamic experiments a SQUID magnetometer in the 10 Hz–2 KHz frequency range will be utilized. HP will be applied to samples by a Cu–Be diamond anvil cell (DAC), so that the device will be able to collect FTIR spectra and high harmonic ac susceptibility data in a dc magnetic field up to 8 T and to about 20 GPa in a wide temperature range (4.2–200 K).