Melting curve of elemental zirconium

Melting experiments require rapid data acquisition due to instabilities of the molten sample and optical drifting due to the high required laser power. In this work, the melting curve of zirconium has been determined up to 80 GPa and 4000 K using in situ fast x-ray diffraction (XRD) in a laser-heated diamond anvil cell. The main method used for melt detection was the direct observance of liquid diffuse scattering in the XRD patterns and it has been proven to be a reliable melting diagnostic. The effectiveness of other melting criteria such as the appearance of temperature plateaus with increasing laser power is also discussed.