Newsletter of the Global COE program

Deep Earth Mineralogy
Center for Advanced Experimental andTheoretical Deep Earth Mineralogy
先進的実験と理論による地球深部物質学拠点

No. 9, December 25, 2011

News & Events
Synthesis of Nano-Polycrystalline Stishovite

concept of "collaboration of theory and experiment" advocated inour global COE program on Deep Earth Mineralogy.

Prof. Irifune elected as new president of AIRAPT

Dr. Norimasa Nishiyama, an associate professor at Geodynamics
Research Center (GRC), and his colleagues have succeeded insynthesizing polycrystalline stishovite (SiO2) with both a very highhardness and toughness. Stishovite, a high-pressure polymorph of
SiO 2 that exists over ~10 GPa, is known as the hardest oxide,
although synthesis of high-quality consolidated polycrystalline
stishovite has not been achieved. The newly synthesized material isfound to consist of granular and columnar fine crystals with typicalgrain sizes of up to several hundred nanometers and is called"Nano-Polycrystalline Stishovite (NPS)". The Vickers hardness of
NPS was determined to be 28 GPa, while the fracture toughness wasestimated to be 13 MPa·m1/2 . These values indicate that NPS has
both high hardness and toughness unlike conventional super hardmaterials, since harder materials tend to be more fragile. Thus, NPS
is expected to be highly useful in some industrial applications, suchas cutting tools, and is also environmental-friendly, since SiO 2 is the
major component of crustal rocks.

The densest phase in metal dioxides
Dr. Haruhiko Dekura at the
Senior Research Fellow Center(SFRC), a virtual research
center for tenure-track faculty
members relevant to theadvanced research centers at
Ehime University, Prof. Taku
Tsuchiya, Dr. Yasuhiro
Kuwayama at GRC, and Dr.
Jun Tsuchiya at the SFRC, found a new high-pressure form of TiO 2,
which turned out to be the densest metal dioxide ever synthesized.
This achievement was made in a joint effort among scientists in boththeoretical and experimental mineral physics, and was reported in
Physical Review Letters in July. The new high-pressure phase withan Fe2P-type structure was predicted by first-principles calculations,and in situ X-ray observations using a laser-heated diamond-anvil
cell (DAC) have verified that this phase is actually formed underhigh-pressure and temperature conditions of ~200 GPa and 4,000 K.
The discovered new phase of TiO2 transforms from thelower-pressure phase with a cortunite-type structure, which is also
predicted to occur in SiO 2, a major mineral in the Earth and rocky
planetary bodies including super Earths. This result highlights theProf. Tetsuo Irifune, thedirector of GRC, has been
elected as president of theInternational Association for the
Advancement of High Pressure
Science and Technology(AIRAPT) at the general bodymeeting of AIRAPT held on the
28th of September 2011 in
Mumbai, India. Prof. Irifune is the first president from Japan in thenearly 50-year history of AIRAPT and is expected to be appointed
for the next 2 terms (4-year) which began in October 2011 together
with the newly elected executive committee members. AIRAPT is
the interdisciplinary international association for high-pressurescience and technology, and the general assembly meeting isbiennially held in various countries. The next meeting is scheduled
to be held in Seattle, USA, in 2013, followed by the subsequentmeeting in Madrid, Spain, in 2015.

Inter-institutional symposium at Geophys. Lab, CIW
An inter-institutional symposium was held at the GeophysicalLaboratory (GL) of the Carnegie Institution of Washington (CIW)on 19-21 September 2011, and was attended by about 30 members
from GRC and the allied institutes of the global COE program in
addition to comparable numbers of members from GL. Keynote
lectures were given by Profs. Tsuchiya and Yagi on the GRC sideand by Profs. Cohen and Hazen on the GL side. Young scientists(i.e. mainly postdoctoral fellows and PhD students) from both sides
gave oral and poster presentations, while senior staff members
evaluated the presentations and research achievements. The
evaluation committee granted the outstanding presentation award to
Drs. Nishi, Dekura and Metsue and to Ms. Yang from the GRC andto Drs. Kono, Stagno, Lazar and Kebukawa from the GL sides,
respectively. Some of the GRC members visited the Advanced
Photon Source in Chicago, the University of California, Berkeley,a nd Stony Brook Un iversit y i n New York before/af ter t hesymposium, where they had seminars for training to further theiracademic experiences and for mutual scientific discussions andinteractions with these world-level laboratories.

Page 1

News & EventsAwards to young scientists at GRC
Dr. Hiroaki Ohfuji, an assistant professor at GRC, received theAward for You ng Scientists f rom the Japan Association of
Mineralogical Sciences (JAMS) during the JAMS 2011 annual
meeting (9-11 September) held at Ibaragi University. The JAMS
annually grants the prize to one or two outstanding young scientists
for their research achievements. Dr. Ohfuji was highly ranked forhis works on the application of transmission electron microscopy to
the formation of micro-structures in minerals and to high-pressuremineral physics and materials science. In addition, Dr. Masayuki
Nishi, a JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow working at GRC, was selected as
one of two awardees of the JAMS Research Paper Award for his
paper on the transformation kinetics of minerals under highpressure and temperature. Meanwhile, the annual meeting of The
Geological Society of Japan was also held at the same venue as thejoint meeting with the JAMS, and Dr. Yoshio Kono, the former
COE Re se a rch Fel low at GRC (now at t he H PCAT of t he
Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington)
received the Sakuyama Masanori Award for his studies on theapplications of ultrasonic techniques to the measurements of elastic
velocities of mantle minerals, rocks, and magmas at high pressure
and temperature. Both Drs. Ohfuji and Kono gave special talks in a
ceremony session held during the joint meeting.

Drs. Ohfuji and Kono

scientists (postdoctoral fellows and PhD students) at GRC entirely
at their own initiative, and plays an important role in the mutual
understandings and communications among the young scientists invarious research fields relevant to deep Earth mineralogy.

The first spherical diamond
Nano-Polycrystalline Diamonds (NPD=HIME-Diamond) havebeen successfully fabricated using a pulsed laser into an almost
perfect sphere with a diameter of 7.5 mm (~4 carats) and a deviationfrom the true sphere being less than several microns (< 0.1%), whichis, to our knowledge, the first spherical diamond ever formed.
Cutting of single-crystal diamond into a spherical shape is extremely
difficult, as its hardness varies substantially depending on the
crystallographic planes/directions. In contrast, the isotropic hardnessof the NPD, made of homogeneously distributed fine-grained
diamond particles, enables it to suffer such fabrication. The spherical
NPD sample is used for the measurement of its elastic properties
using the ultrasonic resonance method, and is also expected to be
applied to optical lenses. This technique also allows us to makearbitrary shapes of anvils for high-pressure apparatus, and pressure
generations using both diamond anvil and multianvil apparatus havebeen attempted with some promising preliminary results.

Dr. Nishi

4th YESA Workshop at GRC
This year's workshop organized by the YESA (Young Earth
Scientist Association) of our global COE program was held on 1-2
September at GRC under the leadership of the current YESA
president, Dr. Hiroki Ichikawa (COE Postdoctoral Fellow of GRC).
The title of the workshop was "Effect of heterogeneities on mantle
dynamics", and various topics based on laboratory studies, seismic
observations, and numerical simulations were provided in order todiscuss the dynamics and the evolution of the Earth's and otherplanetary deep interiors. Attendees of about 30 young scientists,
including 9 invited speakers from JAMSTEC, The University ofTokyo, Tokyo Institute of Technology and Hiroshima University,
ma de i nt e n sive d iscu ssion s on t he se subje ct s i n f r ie nd ly
atmosphere. Yearly YESA workshop is organized by the young

International Frontier Seminar
23rd (12th July)"Thermal conductivity of Earth's liquid outer core from firstprinciples calculations"Lecturer: Dr. Nico de Koker (Bayerisches Geoinstitut, Universität
Bayreuth)

New Members
Tomoaki Kimura(COE Postdoctoral Fellow)
I moved to GRC from Osaka University
this October. Previously, my research was
on t he equ at ion of st ate of watercompressed by laser-driven shock waves.
My current research interests are mainly
the thermal and electrical properties ofPage 2water at pressures of ~100 GPa and temperatures of several 1000 K.
Water at these conditions is expected to be a dense fluid found in
the icy layer of giant planets such as Uranus and Neptune. The fluid
water is considered to be a major contributor to the generation of amagnetic field on this type of planet. I will approach the challengeof the generation of such conditions using a diamond anvil cell anda ten nanoseconds pulse laser. I am pleased to have the opportunity
to explore this exciting new research at GRC.

Internship & Seminar ReportShin-ichi Machida (GCOE Research Fellow)
I visited the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at the Oak Ridge
National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee, USA as the internshipprogram from September to November. In the SNS, high intensity
pulsed neutron is used for the neutron scattering researches. I
learned the technical skill of the neutron diffraction experiments at
the high-pressure beam-line in the SNS, Spallation Neutrons andPressure Diffractometer (SNAP). The SNAP diffractometer allows
the researches of powder and single-crystal samples under theconditions of high-pressure and/or low-temperature. During thisinter nship at the SNS, I st udied about the low-temperat ure
properties of icy materials such as amorphous ice with Christopher
A Tulk and member of the SNAP. They are investigating thestructure of an amorphous solid solution of water and carbon
dioxide.
Carbon dioxide forms a solid structure, a clathrate hydrate, whenmixed with water. The formation of the clathrate hydrate has been
considered as a potential store house for the CO 2 . However, thecharacteristic properties of the CO 2 clathrate hydrate are different
from other known hydrates. In order to examine the formation ofclathrate hydrate from a disordered mixture of water and carbon
dioxide, the neutron diffraction experiments for an amorphous solid
solution mixture of carbon dioxide and water were performed. Theygave me a chance to make the sample of amorphous ice and CO 2 ,and to perform the neutron diffraction experiments. The sample
was synthesized at atmospheric pressure and 10 K by vapor
deposition of water vapor and CO 2 gas. Then, the sample was
loaded into a vanadium can under the cold condition by using theliquid nitrogen. The vanadium can was set to a cryostat in the
SNAP. The neutron diffractions from the sample were collected by
the 48.5 and 90 degrees banks. The experiments were performed
with increasing temperature, and data were collected at 20 to 220 K.
The collected data were analyzed by the Rietveld analysis using
GSAS program. This method of the neutron diffraction experimentwill be very useful for the studies about the icy materials.
I am so grateful to the global COE grant for overseas scientificprogram to give me great opportunity for visiting the SNS. Also, I
appre ciat e D r. Ch r istophe r A Tu l k , D r. Malcol m G ut h r ie
(Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington), andthe member of the SNAP for their kind supports.

several people, and got some
important questions from them.
And I also had the chance tolook at the powerful analysis
techniques at the GeophysicalLab.
After the GL-GRC
symposium, we went to APS
and attended the APS seminar,
which went ver y well u nder
Yanbin's management. Seven
people gave t al ks in theseminar, and active discussion occurred for all of the talks. Afterthe presentations, we discussed future collaboration in a niceatmosphere. Besides that, the smart-designed D-DIA which was
designed by Yanbin, really impressed me very much, as well as thehuge space of the Argonne National Laboratory.
Both the GL-GRC symposium and APS seminar gave us young
people a good chance to learn the importance of communication
between different institutions. During my stay in the US, I also
realized the importance of learning English.

Yongtao Zou (PhD student)
Prof. Irifune, Prof. Inoue, and I made a short visit to the Mineral
Physics Institute of Stony Brook University and Brookhaven
National Laboratory from September 15, 2011 to September 17,
2011. Prof. R.C. Liebermann, the former president of COMPRES
and a famous professor of Stony Brook University, which has an
official collaboration agreement with the GRC and is an importantpar tner of the global COE program, invited us to visit bothfacilities. After the laboratory visit, which was quite interesting, I
attended a seminar held by the Mineral Physics Institute, Stony
Brook University. In this seminar, I gave a talk entitled, "Synthesis
and elastic wave velocities of polycrystalline Mg 3Al 2Si 3O12 garnet
up to 20 GPa and 1700 K: ultrasonic measurements in conjunction
with X-radiation techniques". During this seminar, I had a heateddiscussion with the on-site teachers and/or researchers about theresults of the current ultrasonic measurement data for pyrope.
Especially, Dr. Matthew L. Whitaker, the former assistant professorof GRC, now ser ving as a beamline scientist at Brookhaven
National Laboratory, as well as Prof. Gabriel Gwanmesia havegiven me some good suggestions for the current research results
process. After this seminar, I also discussed with my supervisor
Prof. Irifune and Prof. Li about some suggestions for my next
research project about sound velocity measurements.

Cuiping Yang (PhD student)
The first travel to the U.S. left a deep impression on me, not only
on the nice natural environment and different culture but also on thescientif ic atmosphere. During the Geophysical Laborator y Geodynamics Research Center (GL-GRC) symposium, I found thatpeople from the Geophysical Laboratory (GL) side were quite
active, and they asked more questions during presentations than I
expected. And because of this tendency, I was able to discuss with

Page 3

Internship & Seminar Report
Yusuke Usui (COE Postdoctoral Fellow)
I visited the department of Earth and Planetary Sciences,
University of California, Berkeley with Prof. Tsuchiya, Dr.
Kuwayama, and Dr. Dekura from GRC and Dr. Kawai from Tokyo
Tech. after the GL-GRC symposium. UC Berkeley is the 10th
university in the world, according to university rankings publishedby the Times Higher Education in 2011-2012, which is the United
Kingdom's leading higher education news publication. UC Berkeley
has a lot of top class researchers in the field of Earth science. The
traditions of the university, which is one of the most popular inJapan, are liberal and the atmosphere is friendly. So we could seethat the students were lively and active in the university.
In this short visit, the seminar and laboratory tour were organized
by Prof. Bruce and Dr. Matsui from UC Berkeley. There were a lotof good presentations and I had many useful discussions with young
researchers. In particular, Dr. Matsui showed the study of dynamo
simulations in the outer core, which no people study at GRC, and it
was very interesting that he showed the existence of the temperatureand chemical heterogeneity in the outer core. For my presentation, I
was favorably impressed by many people and I also got a lot of
useful comments especially from Prof. Bruce. I think I should
improve some presentation slides and future plans for the AGU fallmeeting.

In the laboratory tour, we visited the seismological laboratory, andProf. Allen who is the director of the laboratory and Dr. Peggy
introduced some seismic sensors and the seismicity in the San
Francisco Bay Area. This area is located at the subduction zone andearthquakes often occur. Therefore, it is very important to constructa system for the Earthquake Early Warning. This situation is very
similar to Japan, especially in the Kanto region. However, I felt that
we have progressed further with construction than the USA.
Finally, through this short overseas visit, I have been favorably
impressed, and I would like to study at UC Berkeley. I would like tothank Prof. Bruce and Dr. Matsui for holding the meeting, and I also
thank the global COE International Scientist Training Program at
Ehime University for giving me a chance to participate in theinternational seminars.

Facility at GRC (III): BOTCHAN-6000
BOTCHAN-6000 is a large Kawai-type multianvil apparatus operated in a
6000-ton press, about 5.3 m high and 90 tons in weight, which was constructedat SOSEKI laboratory at GRC in 2009. BOTCHAN (young master, in Japanese)stands for "Beyond Observable Toughness and Conceivable Hardness of
Artificial Nano-diamond", but is also taken from the title of the famous novel
written by Soseki Natsume during the Meiji era, where Botchan and Madonna
are the major characters in the novel. A new 1500-ton D-DIA type press,
MADONNA (Multi-Anvil Device ON Newer Applications), is also sitting besidethe BOTCHAN in the SOSEKI lab. SOSEKI is taken from the author of thenovel, but this word also means "creation of new gem stones" in Japanese.
Actually, BOTCHAN has mainly been used for producing large consolidated
bodies of nano-polycrystalline diamond (NPD or Hime diamond) and also forhigh-pressure synthesis of these new materials that are potentially important forindustrial and scientific use.
COLUMN: A mysterious statue at Garyu Sanso
Ozu city is located some 100 km south of Matsuyama city, the latter being the capital of
Ehime prefecture and the hometown of GRC. In Ozu city and also in the neighboringhistoric town of Uchiko, buildings in Meiji and Edo eras (100-200 years ago) are wellpreserved and attract many tourists, particularly in late autumn when tree leaves turn
beautiful red or yellow. Garyu Sanso, a mountain villa facing the Hijikawa river, wasconstructed over 100 years ago in Ozu city and is one of the best spots to enjoy the autumn
color in Ehime prefecture. People can also enjoy the tea
ceremony in a relaxed atmosphere, while appreciating thebeautiful Japanese garden. A mysterious statue is sitting in
the garden of Garyu Sanso, which also attracts many
tourists but nobody really knows what this statue is. Its
face looks like that of a fox, but its body and the standing figure are likely those of typical raccoon, or"tanuki", statues common in Japanese gardens. Most likely, this is a pregnant fox, considering the imageof the fox that Japanese people generally have; fox is the incarnation of a rather clever female, while
tanuki is a kind of symbol for a stupid male. It is also believed that the fox is the messenger/symbol of agod (we have many gods in Japan) and a couple of fox statues are placed in front of many shrine
temples, where a number of people visit at the beginning of the new year for prayer. Let's pray to thismisterious statue that GRC will continue to be productive in the coming year.

Page 4

Hot Researches by Young Scientists
A design of backing seat and gasket
assembly in a DAC for accurate single
crystal x-ray diffraction
Kazuki Komatsu(Project Lecturer,
The University of Tokyo)

T he d if f icu lt y i n c r yst al st r uct u re
ref inements using single cr ystal x-ray
diffraction data taken under high pressurei s c a u s e d by l i m it e d a n d i n a c c u r a t e
intensities, i.e., the limited opening angle
restricts accessible reciprocal space, and theaccuracy of collected intensities and theirestimated standard deviations are adversely
affected by anvils, gaskets, backing seats,
etc. Therefore, the way to obtain moreaccurate structural parameters are with aSynthesis and elastic wave velocitiesof polycrystalline pyrope
Mg3Al2Si3O12 garnet up to 20 GPa
and 1700 K

Yongtao Zou(PhD Student)

Silicate gar nets are one of the mostabundant constituent minerals of the mantle
transition zone, comprising of about 40%
by volume of the pyrolite composition. It isthus of geophysic importance to study theelastic properties in order to interpret theseismic tomographic images and elastic
wave velocities/density proﬁles from aseismological viewpoint. Pyrope garnet isone of the most signif icant magnesium
end-members of this group. However, towidely opened x-ray window for bothincident and diffracted x-rays and to use
less-absorbed and less-scattered materials
in the x-ray traveling path. Following thesetwo points, a modified design of diamondanvil cells was designed for an accurate
structure refinement (Fig.1). The features of
the assembly are 1) the platy anvil andunique-shaped backing seat (called a 'Wing
seat') allowing an extremely wide opening
angle up to ±65 o and 2) the PFA - bulk
metallic glass composite gasket allowing
e a sy at t e nu at ion c or r e ct ion a nd le s s
ba ckg rou nd . T h a n k s t o t he de sig ne dassembly, the Rint values after attenuation
corrections are fairly good and the errors of
the refined parameters are satisfactorily
small even for hydrogen positions, those arecomparable to the results which wereobtained at ambient conditions. The resultfor ice VI are in excellent agreement withprevious study, and that for ethanol HP
phase has remarkable contributions to therevision to its structure; the H12 site, whichmakes gauche molecules with O1, C2, andC3 sites, may not exist so that only transconformers are present at least at 1.95(2)GPa. The accurate intensities using the cell
assembly allows us to extract the electrond e n sit y for e t h a nol H P ph a s e by t he
maximum entropy method (Fig. 2).
date, earlier studies on the elastic propertiesof pyrope have been limited, either to room
temperature, or to pressures restricted to 9
GPa at h ig h t e mp e r at u re by Br i l l ion
s p e c t r o s c opy a nd /or u lt r a s on ic
measurements. Here, we report elastic wave
velocities as well as elastic properties forsynthetic polycrystalline pyrope up to 20
GPa and 1700 K, equivalent to the middle
part of the mantle transition zone, by using
ultrasonic interferometry combined withenerg y- d ispersive sy nch rot ron X-ray
diff raction in a cubic-anvil DI A-t y peapparatus.
Polycrystalline pyrope has been preparedat 11 GPa and 1200 ºC from a homogeneous
glass with pyrope composition. Elastic
wave velocities for the sy nthetic
polycrystalline pyrope were successfullymeasured to 20 GPa and 1700 K. TEM
image of the recovered sample after ourultrasonic measurement, as an inset in Fig.
1, shows that the sample is well-sinteredand equilibrium texture formed with anaverage grain size of about 1-2 μm, without
any observable porosity or micro-cracks.
Fig. 1 shows the elastic wave velocit ychanges as a f unction of pressu re andtemperature. In addition, a quasi-linear
pressure and temperature dependence inboth Vp and Vs are observed, in contrast to
the significantly non-linear temperaturedependences of Vp and Vs observed form ajo r it e ( I r i f u n e e t a l ., 2 0 0 8). A
two-dimensional (P-T) linear fitting of the

45o

65o

65o

5 mm

45o

(a)

(b)

Fig. 1. (a) Slice image of newly designed(lower, so-called 'Wing') and conical (upper,
so - called 'Boeh ler-A l ma x') a nv il a ndbacking seat. (b) Picture of the Wing seatwith anvil.

Fig. 2. Composite images of ball-and-stickmodel of ethanol molecule in the HP phaseand isosurfaces of electron density obtainedby the maximum entropy method.

present data also yields the following
parameters: K0S = 170.0 (2) GPa, ∂Ks/∂P =4.51(2), ∂K S /∂T = -0.0170(1) GPa/K, G =93.2(1) GPa, G 0 ' = 1.51(1), and ∂G/∂T =- 0.0 0107(1) GPa / K , wh ich is i n goodag reement with earlier results by
Si nogei k i n et a l. (20 0 0 & 20 02) a nd
Gwanmesia et al. (2006).

Fig. 1. Elastic wave velocities of pyrope
gar net at high pressure and hightemperature determined from the present
ultrasonic measurements. The solid lines
are the t wo-dimensional linear f it tingresults of the entire P-T range. TEM imageof the recovered sample after the present
ultrasonic mearuements, as an inset in Fig.
1, shows that the sample is well-sinteredand equilibrium texture formed with anaverage grain size of about 1-2 µm, andw i t h o u t a n y o b s e r v a bl e p o r o s i t y o r
micro-cracks.

Page 5TANDEM
THE ASIAN NETWORKIN DEEP EARTH MINERALOGY
News & Events
Plenary talk and exhibition at AIRAPT in Mumbai

Internship student from Peking Univ. to GRC

Prof. Tetsuo Irifune gave a plenary talk on nano-polycrystalline
diamonds (NPD, HIME-Dia) at the AIRAPT-23 held in Mumbai in
September, 2011. A lot of attention was attracted by his talk onmechanical and optical properties, fabrications into arbitrary shapes,
and applications to high-pressure sciences of the NPDs, together
with a greeting message as the new president of the AIRAPT.
Meanwhile, a GRC exhibition booth was open during the AIRAPTto show actual NPDs with several types of cutting (sphere, cubic,
and brilliant), in addition
to introduction offacilities at GRC andactivities at our global
COE program. Coupledwith the plenary talk by
Prof. Irifune, many
attendees dropped by thebooth and had interests in
the NPD itself along withthe other activities at
GRC.

One graduate student
from Peking University,
Ms. Meili Wang
supervised by Dr. Qiong
Liu, stayed at GRC from
October 2011 to January
2012 for an internshipprogram and forcollaborative research.
She conductedhigh-pressure and high-temperature experiments on the melting of
K2CO3 carbonate and CO2 solubility in silicate magma under highpressure under the instruction of Prof. Toru Inoue of GRC. Based on
the agenda of TANDEM on mutual educations, GRC accepts suchinternship students from Asian countries, and four students from
Peking University visited GRC for several months this year. These
internship programs availabe through GRC focus on deep earth
mineralogy using high-pressure experiments and theoretical
calculations.

Visitors from NCKU to GRC
Prof. Jennifer Kung of the National Cheng Kung University(NCKU) visited GRC with two master course students for training
multianvil techniques for higher temperature generation at highpressure, under the supervision of Prof. Toru Inoue and Dr. Toru
Shinmei, during the period of 21-28 November, 2011. Two students
stayed at GRC for about one week and conducted some synthesis
experiments using multianvil apparatus. Department of Earth
Sciences at NCKU is one of the 8 institutions that GRC has a mutual
agreement for research collaboration and exchange of researchersand students, and Prof. Kung recently introduced a D-DIA typemultianvil apparatus at her laboratory for high-pressure mineral
physics studies of mantle materials.

Seminar at RSES, ANU
Prof. Tetsuo Irifune gave a talk on nano-polycrystalline diamondat the School Seminar of Research School of Earth Sciences (RSES),
the Australian National University, on 7 July with Prof. Shun-ichiro
Karato of Yale University, after their trip to Melbourne, where thegeneral assembly meeting of the International Union of Geodesy andGeophysics (IUGG) was held. GRC and RSES have had a mutual
agreement for inter-institutional research collaborations andexchange of researchers/students since 2008.

Page 6

The first PhD in the special course at GRC
Dr. Leiming Fang received his PhD on 26 September as the firststudent enrolled in the Special PhD course on Deep EarthMineralogy, since it was founded at Ehime University in 2008,
relevant to the global COE program. Dr. Fang focuses his researchon the phase relations of C 3 N 4 at pressures of 27 GPa andtemperatures up to 2000 ºC, and found that the ultrahard phasepredicted by theoretical studies does not exist at these pressure andtemperature conditions. Moreover, he showed C 3N4 decomposes into
an assemblage of liquid nitrogen plus diamond at certain pressuresand temperatures. Dr. Fang accepted an offer of a tenured position at
the China Academy of Engineering Physics immediately after hereceived his PhD.

Call for Special PhD course at GRC
A special PhD course at GRC, Ehime University, for enrollment
in September 2012 is open for Asian students who have strong
interests in the research fields of deep Earth mineralogy and relevantscience/technological fields. Students of the course, with financial
support from the university, will be provided with educational
programs for advanced studies of high-pressure experiments andtheoretical calculations. The examination will be scheduled in May,
2012. An application guideline will be announced soon via the
TANDEM mailing list and on the global-COE website:
http://deep-earth-mineralogy.jp/g-coe2008/english/positions
Contact:
Prof. Toru Inoue (inoue@sci.ehime-u.ac.jp)
Dr. Akira Yamada (yamada@sci.ehime-u.ac.jp)

TANDEM Laboratories
High-Pressure and Thermochemistry Laboratory,
Department of Chemistry, Gakushuin University

T he ca mpu s of G a k u shu i n Un ive r sit y is lo cat e d i n t henorth-western part of metropolitan Tokyo. Though it is near centerof Tokyo, the campus is in a quiet district with a number of talltrees. Gakushuin University was founded in 1949, but the origin of
the university goes back to the imperial educational institution
established in 1847 in Kyoto. Now, the university has four faculties
and seven graduate schools, and has a total student body of about
9,000 in undergraduate and graduate courses.
The Department of Chemistry in the Faculty of Science has nineresearch groups in which two are geoscience-oriented groups
having a background in chemistry. The research group led by M.
Akaogi started in 1990. Currently, our group has two faculty
members, M. Akaogi and H. Kojitani, four graduate students andfour undergraduate students. Our research interest is high-pressuremineral physics and chemistry. In particular, we focus our researchinterests on high-pressure phase transitions of minerals and related
inorganic materials and on thermodynamic properties of thehigh-pressure phases. Both research interests are closely related. In
the laborator y, we intensively use a 700-ton and a 1000-ton
Kawai-type multianvil apparatus to generate pressures up to 30 GPa
and temperatures to 2500 ºC for phase equilibrium studies andhigh-pressure material synthesis. We also have two Calvet-type
calorimeters for enthalpy measurements of several-mg samples, anda differential scanning calorimeter for heat capacity measurements.
Although a number of high-pressure laboratories are working in theworld, our laboratory is a very unique one where both high-pressure
experiments and thermochemical measurements can be made in asingle laboratory. We produce large amounts of high-pressure
phases with the multianvil apparatus and consume them in thecalorimeters. During the past twenty years, we have determined
phase equilibrium relations and thermodynamic properties ofvarious high-pressure silicate minerals such as MgSiO3 perovskite,akimotoite and majorite, Mg 2SiO4 ringwoodite, etc. by using bothof the above techniques. The results have been applied for theunderstanding of mineralogy of the deep mantle. We synthesized a
new hexagonal aluminous phase called the NAL phase and
TANDEM Laboratories:
Ehime Univ.
Japan
Univ. Tokyo (Geochem. Lab.)Japan
Univ. Tokyo (Inst. Solid State Phys.) Japan
Japan Synchrotron Res. Inst.
Japan
Hokkaido Univ.
Japan
Kyushu Univ.
Japan
Hiroshima Univ.
Japan
Natl. Inst. Mater. Sci.
Japan
Gakushuin Univ.
Japan
Okayama Univ.
Japan
Tokyo Inst. Tech.
Japan

analyzed the structure for the first time. The stability relations ofsome high-pressure aluminous phases were applied to someshocked meteorites to estimate the P, T conditions of the shock
events.
For characterization of high-pressure phases, we intensively use apowder X-ray diffractometer and a microfocus X-ray diffraction
apparatus both of which are operated with a rotating anode. A
sca n n i ng ele ct ron m ic roscope w it h a n e ne rg y- d ispe r sive
spect rometer is u sed for chem ical a nalysis, a nd a R a ma n
microprobe to measure Raman spectra at room pressure and at highpressure with the diamond-anvil cell is used.
Current researches include the investigation of the high-pressure
post-perovskite transition of a variety of ABX 3 compounds,
analogous to MgSiO3 but quenchable at ambient conditions; precise
determination of phase transitions in mantle rocks of various
compositions; high-pressu re phase relations and st r uct u rerefinements of several different aluminous silicates presumably
stable in the deep mantle; calorimetry of ferrous-iron bearing
minerals under an oxidative atmosphere; measurements of heatcap a cit y of m a nt le m i ne r a l s a nd ca lc u lat ion of C p u si ng
high-pressure Raman spectroscopy, etc. Recently, we have foundseveral A BX 3 post-perovskite phases at high pressure, andmeasured the characteristic physical properties. In the Faculty of
Science, we collaborate with other groups from the Departments ofChemistry and Physics such as a group investigating new inorganic
functional-materials for the physical properties measurements.
Further information is available on our web site(http://www-cc.gakushuin.ac.jp/~901334 /homepage/AkaogiHP-English.htm).
In the last several years, we made fruitful collaborations with
scientists at important institutions including the National Instituteof Materials Science in Tsukuba, the Tokyo Institute of Technology,
Hokkaido University, Ehime University, Bayreuth Geoinstitut,
Moscow State Universit y, and Peking Universit y including
TANDEM researchers. We hope for productive collaboration withTAMDEM members to make further developments in high-pressuremineral physics and chemistry.
Correspondence:Prof. Masaki Akaogi (masaki.akaogi@gakushuin.ac.jp)

Osaka Univ.
Japan
Kyoto Univ.
Japan
Univ. Hyogo
Japan
JAMSTEC (Inst. Res. Earth Evol.)Japan
Tohoku Univ.
Japan
China Univ. Geosci., Wuhan
China
Jilin Univ.
China
Peking Univ.
China
Chin. Acad. Sci. (Inst. Geochem.)
China
Chin. Acad. Sci. (Inst. Geol. Geophys.)
China
Yanshan Univ.
China

Sichuan Univ.
Seoul Natl.Univ.
Natl. Chen Kung Univ.
Australian Natl. Univ.

China
Korea
TaiwanAustralia

Advisors:
Yanbin WANG (GSECARS, Univ. Chicago)
Baosheng LI (MPI, Stony Brook Univ.)
Jiuhua CHEN (Florida Int. Univ.)
Yingwei FEI (Carnegie Inst. Washington)
Tomoo KATSURA (BGI, Univ. Bayreuth)

Page 7

TANDEM Laboratories
State Key Laboratory for Inorganic Synthesis andPreparative Chemistry (ISPC) of Jilin University,
China

The members of the Group of High Pressure Research at ISPC of JLU, China in 2011

Jilin University (JLU) is one of the leading universities and thelargest national university under the direct jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education of China. JLU is located in Changchun, the capital
city of Jilin Province in Northeastern China. There are eightcampuses which are home to forty-three colleges covering twelve
academic disciplines, and a total of 68,580 full time students amongwhom more than 25,000 are graduate students, and 1,638 full professors. The State Key Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis and Preparative Chemistry (ISPC) at Jilin University was established in 2001
upon the approval of the Ministry of Science and Technology ofChina. Its precedent was the Key Laboratory of Inorganic Hydrothermal Synthesis affiliated with the Ministry of Education of China
founded in 1993. The goal of the ISPC is to develop into a first-classteaching and research center in inorganic synthesis and preparative
chemistry, and to build a high-level, well-balanced, and vigorous
research team. Since its establishment, the ISPC has achieved
significant advancements, which include development in the fields ofmolecular engineering, hydrothermal and solvothermal synthesis
chemistry, novel microporous compounds and related single crystals,
low-dimensional phosphates, solid strong correlation materials, andhost-guest chemistry and new catalysts.
Since the beginning of 2004, ISPC began to set up a new lab forhigh pressure research, and Prof. Xiaoyang Liu has been serving as
the Director of High Pressure Research since then. The faculty members in the Group of High Pressure Research are Prof. Jiuhua Chen
(Earth Sciences), Prof. Xudong Zhao (Condensed Matter Physics),
Associate Prof. Xiaofeng Wang (High Pressure Solid State Chemsitry), Associate Prof. Zhanhui Ding (Condensed Matter Physics), Dr.
Benxian Li (Earth Sciences), and Dr. Weiguang Shi (Life Sciences).
Up to now, the high pressure equipment at the ISPC include a Bruker
APEX II QUAZAR in-situ High Pressure X-ray Diffractometer, aRenishaw inVia Reflex in-situ High Pressure Raman Spectrometer, a
1000-Ton two-stage Walker Multi Anvil High Pressure Apparatus, a
1000-Ton two-stage Cubic Multi Anvil High Pressure Apparatus, a
150-Ton 3.0 QuickPress Piston-Cylinder High Pressure Apparatus, a
LECO TEM-PRES HR-1B Hydrothermal Research Units, an Initiator™ EXP Eight Microwave Hydrothermal System, a Parr Model
4021 Rocker Type Hydrothermal Reactor, a Parr Model 4571 Stirred
Hydrothermal Reactor, and a Nikkiso THP-BI-100 Hydrothermal
Unit. The following analytical instruments are available at the ISPC:
powder and single crystal X-ray diffractometers, SEM, TEM, PPMS,SQUIDS, XPS, IR, ESP, and ICP.
Current high pressure research at the ISPC focuses on: a)geochemistry and mineralogy of gold, nickel, and platinum-groupelements through laboratory experimentation and study of ore minerals and ore deposits; b) the synthesis, structural chemistry, andatomic bonding in crystalline silicates, phosphates, sulfides,
analogue materials, and synthetic glasses; c) high-pressure synthesisof silicates, superhard and superconductor materials; d) crystal
chemistry of transition metal oxides; and e) in-situ high pressure
research.
Upholding the principle of openness, mobility, cooperation, andcompetition, the ISPC welcomes domestic and international
researchers to visit and carry out collaborative research.
Correspondence:Prof. Xiaoyang Liu (liuxy@jlu.edu.cn)

High Pressure Lab at ISPC of JLU, China

Global COE Newsletter, issued Jan., May and Sep.
Geodynamics Research Center, Ehime University
2-5 Bunkyo-cho, Matsuyama 790-8577, Japan
Tel & Fax : +81-89-927-8405
E-mail : g-coe@sci.ehime-u.ac.jp
URL: http://deep-earth-mineralogy.jp/
Edited by Akira Yamada and Megumi Yashiro
Page 8