Deviatoric stress and mean pressure in MgO compressed in a Kawai-type apparatus above 30 GPa: Evidence for reduction of deviatoric stress by annealing Original Research Article

By applying the numerical tensor analysis proposed by Yoneda and Kubo [Simultaneous determination of mean pressure and deviatoric stress based on numerical tensor analysis: a case study for polycrystalline X-ray diffraction of gold enclosed in a methanol–ethanol mixture. J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 18(2006)S979], we have determined deviatoric stress and mean pressure of polycrystalline MgO compressed in the Kawai-type apparatus. After the compression at room temperature, the mean pressure and the deviatoric stress in MgO were determined as 34.5 and 3.2 GPa, respectively. The mean pressure is significantly lower than the nominal pressure of 37.2 GPa determined by the conventional pressure determination method. By heating the sample to 1850 K with the constant press load, the deviatoric stress dramatically decreased to 0.1 GPa with a mean pressure of 34.2 GPa at room temperature after the heating. These results show both the importance of stress analysis to determine pressure more accurately and the effectiveness of annealing to reduce deviatoric stress in the sample.