In-situ X-ray structure measurements on aerodynamically levitated high temperature liquids

High energy, high flux X-ray sources enable new measurements of liquid and amorphous materials in extreme conditions. Aerodynamic levitation in combination with laser beam heating can be used to access high purity and non-equilibrium liquids at temperatures up to 3000 K. In this work, a small aerodynamic levitator was integrated with high energy beamline 11 ID-C at the Advanced Photon Source. Scattered X-rays were detected with a Mar345 image plate. The experiments investigated a series of binary in the CaO-Al2O3, MgO-SiO2, SiO2-Al2O3 metal oxide compositions and pure SiO2. The results show that the liquids exhibit large changes in structure when the predominant network former is diluted. Measurements on glasses with the same compositions as the liquids suggest that significant structural rearrangement consistent with a fragile-strong transition occurs in these reluctant glass forming liquids as they vitrify