Optical full-field strain measurement within a diamond anvil cell

Digital image correlation computations are run on optical images of iron samples within a diamond anvil cell to obtain in-plane strain components at the surface of the sample up to 17 GPa. The alpha-Fe -> epsilon-Fe transition onset pressure and phase coexistence pressure domain can be identified from the evolution of the surface average of strain components. Strain fields exhibit localizations for both direct and reverse transition; they coincide with the approximate boundary locations of reversion variants inside the microstructure of a single crystal sample. The so-called DICDAC (Digital Image Correlation within a Diamond Anvil Cell) setup is then a suitable tool for the investigation of phase transformations strains under pressure. In addition, specific volumes that are deduced from strain out of the transition pressure domains agree within Delta V/V = 0.4% with the equation of state data from the literature.