 It's one o'clock on a Monday afternoon, so you must be watching Think Tech Hawaii Research in Manoa. I'm your host, Pete McGinnis-Marc, and my guest today is Dr. Bin Chen, who has been on this particular show a number of times, but Bin, you're from the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, and your area of expertise is high-pressure mineral physics. So before we get started, people have already seen earlier shows with you. Just remind us, what does somebody who does high-pressure mineral physics really do? Yeah, so what we really do is to employ high-pressure devices like a diamond anvil cell or a large ballon press to squeeze samples to very high pressure, and then we also heat it up. And then we use x-ray or laser to probe the material properties under these conditions. And then over the purpose of this experiment is to try to understand the structure or the compositional makeup of the planetary interior. Okay, so this is really high pressures in comparison to what the general public would experience. It's not like just going down to the bottom of the ocean and the water pressure. This is really deep. This is hundreds of miles down beneath the Earth's surface. So we can actually obtain the same kind of pressures and the same kind of temperatures that one would see inside the interior of the Earth. Is that correct? Yes. So using a device called a diamond anvil cell. So it's a pocket size, but we can squeeze samples to the pressure, temperature conditions found at the center of the Earth, so which is like more than three million atmosphere pressure. Three million times the pressure that you and I are experiencing right now in the studio for example. Yeah, exactly. And you mentioned samples. Are these big room size samples or are these little tiny things? It's a very tiny sample because we know that the pressure is basically forced over an area. So in order to reach higher pressure, we can either increase the force or we can decrease reduce the area that the diameter applied to. So the samples are usually, in order to reach the pressure of the center of the Earth, the sample volume is usually like tens of micro. Oh, very small. Very small. You can still see the sample, but only with a magnifying glass and that sort of thing. Yeah, okay. And just to recap once more, we can do this to look at the minerals within the Earth. I think you've also brought along the first slide, if we can take a look at that. We can also apply this to the interior of any other planet. That's why you're in the Institute of Geophysics and Planetology. And here we're seeing the first slide with the Earth and I guess these are all drawn to the same scale. Earth on the left-hand side, the moon, top center, Mars on the far right and the planet Mercury at the bottom. And we've got a ratio here, rc over rp is what? So it's the core radius versus the planetary radius. The radius of the core inside the planet. Yeah, over the radius of the planet. And what's interesting is that these numbers are different, right? Yeah, these are quite different. And then, so we know that the terrestrial-like planet, they all have crust, mantle, and the core. And then the Earth, so the Earth core is like 2,900 kilometers in depth. So we can reach the top of the Earth's outer core if we do hold 2,900 kilometers deep. And then we can reach. Yeah, that is of course impossible. But in our experiment, we can re-stimulate the conditions at that depth. But the same experiments you're conducting, you could also learn something about the interior of our moon, or Mars, or Mercury, presumably if you change the composition of the materials in your samples and that sort of thing. Yeah, we are trying to understand what are the conversations we make up of all these planet cores. So for the Earth core, there are many candidates, such as carbon, oxygen, like that. So the Earth core is the minimum of iron and nickel. And for our dedicated viewers, of course, this is all background, because Bin's been on the show at least a couple of times before. But you've just come back from Chicago, where you've had like six weeks of experiments. So let's segue into what's new in your field, all right? So I think you went to the Argonne National Labs, which we've got in the second slide. And so tell us a bit about what you were doing over the last six weeks. In the last six weeks, we had six experiments. So in order to get the beam time in the advanced light source, we had to apply in advance, we had to submit a proposal, and then we can gather sometimes three days, sometimes six days beam time. So I have six of them, like a sixth of these proposals founded for the beam time. And then so what do we do is that we employ the high-brilliance and high-energy access source produced by this... And in the image, we're using some jargon here. Let's explain for our audience. You mentioned beam time. Well, you went to this facility, which is outside Chicago. And the beam, is that like a death ray from Star Trek? What do you mean by beam time? Yeah, the beam time is basically the time that is awarded to a PI, the principal investigator who can use the high-brilliance X-ray to probe your samples there. So there are many beam lines, it's like a station, like more than 30 stations around the ring. So we only use a few of these stations, but there are some other stations. And do you have to go to Chicago, presumably, because those X-ray beams are not available here in Hawaii, is that correct? No, it's not available here, because it's highly energetic, correct? Yeah, because the brightness of the X-ray is close to the brightness of the surface of the song, so that's really bright. And so when the audience hears you say, you're using X-rays, this is not like the X-ray you would have when you go to the dentist to do your teeth, this is thousands, if not millions of times more intense, correct? Yeah, it's much more nice. And let's take a look back at that same image, because you're working on some equipment here, correct? Yeah. The experiment that we conducted, employing the technique available at one of the stations for the experimental touch at the Argonne National Lab. So this picture shows my student, Xiaojin Lai, working in this touch. She was trying to install a diamond arrow cell at the stage. And then, surrounding the diamond arrow cell, there are like three detectors, so we used to probe the very weak signals from the sample. And then from the signals, we can determine the vibrational and acoustic properties of the samples squeezed between two diamonds. Then we can determine the sound velocity. And this was a new project that you had to go there for six weeks. So can you tell us a bit about what was your objective to make this trip and to do this particular study? Yeah, this is a project funded by the National Science Foundation through the early career program. So the project is mainly about the sound of the lattice dynamics of iron aeroid on the high pressure in order to understand the composition and also the structure of the process. So this is a five-year project. And then I have this funding. And you mentioned the National Science Foundation's early career award. These are very difficult to obtain, and you managed to win such an award a year or so ago. It was my recollection. So congratulations on that. And it's great to see that you've got students engaged already in training the next generation. Let's look at the third slide, because that will show us a bit more of the equipment, I guess, that you're using. There's three images here. Let's start with the big blue thing at the left-hand side. What is that? So this is a press that we use to squeeze large volume of samples under pressure. And we also heat it up, use this resistive heating method. So we have X-ray from the right side. And then, so the press is basically, because X-ray is stationary, we cannot move X-ray. We have to move this press. This press is a one-thousand ton press that can generally read the one-thousand US ton. That's one-thousand tons, yes. Then we, so in the experimental heart, we can lift this whole press off the ground and move this press at a precision of micrometer level. Like a, it's like a, yeah, a micrometer level precision. And the other image at the lower right of this slide, if we could... The lower right of this slide, this shows... This is the module we are using to compress our samples. So you can see that this, the center cube is compressed from six directions. Okay. Four sides, top and bottom. Yeah, four sides and top and bottom. And then our sample is located at the center of these eight cubes compressed by the bottom six directions. So in this experiment, we actually acquired a new grade of tungsten carbide cubes. So we are trying to double the pressure capability of this large volume press to like from 25, or 250,000 bar to 500,000 bar. And if you can increase the pressure, then that's equivalent to going deeper into the... Yeah. And you can do a lot of research using this new grade of tungsten carbide cubes. I see. And that new material, is that developed in Hawaii, or is it just commercially available? It's developed in Japan. So Japan is quite advanced in the super-hardened material research. So they have this new grade of tungsten carbide cubes. So we were very lucky that we gathered these cubes and wanted to double the pressure capability that can be achieved in the US, in Japan. In Japan, they have already done that. And our national labs, is that the only facility in the United States? Or are there others? Or are there facilities like that in Japan or elsewhere? Yeah, there are a lot of single-chrome facilities, not a lot of them, like a number of them. Like in the US, in the West Coast, there's the other ones, the light source. The Lawrence Livermore National Lab. And then in the Midwest, we have the Argonne National Lab. And then on the East Coast, we have this NSLS, Brookhaven National Lab. So it's three or four, and you said single-chrome. This is a facility that provides these high-energy X-ray particles that investigators like yourself and our colleagues at the university can come out and use. But not many, and there are a few other facilities elsewhere outside the United States. Yeah, yeah, so there are a few in Europe, you have a few single-chrome. But not many, because it's very costly, and then you need a lot of money to run it. I see. Well, we're just about coming up to a break bin. But when we come back, first of all, I have to ask, why do you do this? Apart from, it's fascinating. And then also, how did you get into this field? So we'll take a break right now. Let me just remind the viewers that you're watching Think Tech Hawaii Research in Manoa. I'm your host, Pete McGinnis-Mark, and my guest today is Dr. Bin Chen from the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology at UH Manoa, and we'll be right back. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. And welcome back to Think Tech Hawaii Research in Manoa. I'm your host, Pete McGinnis-Mark, and our guest today is Dr. Bin Chen, who's an assistant researcher at the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology at UH Manoa. And we're talking about high pressure mineral physics. Well, Bin, before we went to the break, you were showing us slides of some of these pieces of equipment. And I see that you've brought to the studio just one of these small sample holders. So if we can put the table camera on, what is it that we're looking at? And let me just put my glasses so that people can see the scale, all right? So this is quite a small little piece of equipment. What is it? So this is a model for the diamond and arrow scale. So it's pocket-sized, so it can squeeze samples between two diamonds. So between the two curate of the diamond. And then so we know that the pressure is generated by applying force to an area. So we've got two little pieces in the middle, right? So at the center is for the metal gasket. So we do a hole in the metal gasket and then we load a very tiny sample in this metal gasket. So you need to be quite handy in loading very fine samples to like a curate, like a flat surface with a radius of like a 20 micron. So even though you've got this giant press, that big piece of blue equipment we saw in one of the slides, which was many refrigerators in size, you're working with various fine pieces of equipment. So that leads me to the question, how did you get into this field? Yeah, that's a good question. So I was trained as a geochemist before, so I worked on oxygen isotopes of monomorphic rocks. And when I applied for graduate school, so I happened to enter this field. And I like it because I like to get my hands dirty in the lab. And then I think I'm quite good at doing all these experiments. So I'm always fascinated in people's career paths. So you started off as a geologist, correct? Yeah, geochemist. Yeah, geochemist, you were looking at the composition of different rocks and the isotopes of this material. But then you seemed to be into equipment and doing really fine detailed stuff. Did that transition occur when you were graduate school or when you applied to UH for a job? Have you been doing this for years? Yeah, I have been doing this since 2004. My first project is about mercury. The planet mercury? Yeah, the planet mercury. So we conducted high pressure experiments on the melting of the iron sulfur system. And then we found that the snowing or raining of the iron crystals in mercury's liquid alcohol is likely the cause for the magnetic field in mercury. Would you say your career path is unusual? If someone wanted to follow you, would she be able to do this kind of study at any university? Or is there just one or two places around the country which specialize in? Minimum physical program is not a very large program in the US. They are only a handful of universities have this program. And I think it's not an unusual career path. It's quite unusual. But then the next question is why should anybody care? What would the person in the street see as the relevance of this work? How do you justify studying these minerals at extreme pressure? What's the relevance? The main reason is all the curiosity, like all these space missions. So we send the spacecraft to the outer space and then trying to understand the universe. There is also a universe in the interior of the planet. Because it's actually more inaccessible than the outer space. Because you cannot drill very deep into the interior of the Earth. And then you get a sample. But it's probably easier to get a sample from the Moon than you get a sample from the Moon. The work you do is kind of a detective story trying to understand where particular minerals occur within, let's say, the Earth's interior. Is that important? Is there anything? I've heard that earthquakes, the shockwave can go through the entire interior of the Earth. Does your work relate to understanding earthquakes? My work is not directly related to earthquakes. But my colleague, our colleague, Chen Mek Dera, he's now mainly working on the subductive slab. Some of the minerals are found in the subductive slab. Subductive slabs is where the Earth's crust is overturning through plate tectonics. So we are trying to understand the physics and the chemistry of the planetary interior. So of course the main reason is out of curiosity. And the other is actually our research is a very important piece that we can use to understand the chemical evolution of planets. If we look back at the history of the planet and how all these environments are. And I've also heard that the Earth's interior is probably unusual in that it generates a magnetic field, which protects us from radiation. Is that correct? Does that relate to the kind of work that you can do? Yes, so the work I did about the Mercury's core. Mercury is a very smaller version of Earth. Mercury also has a magnetic field. So our work, our high pressure work, we actually did have a very good, we proposed a very good mechanism for the generation of the magnetic field in Mercury. And I hope that we can do the same for the Earth. And even planets like Jupiter have magnetic fields, which Jupiter's interior is much higher pressure. And the magnetic field is of relevance to people in their everyday life because it shields us from the radiation from the outer space. I see. So even though your research is basically pure discovery, there are things like studying deep earthquakes, like studying the magnetic field, which protects us from the Sun. So that's presumably why NSF is interested. Is that correct? Yeah. And also our research, there might be some like a byproduct from our research. For example, some group of researchers, the things like this large nano-crystalline diamond that has industrial, like, use. So you mentioned diamonds, and diamonds are created deep within the Earth's interior. So you can, can you make diamonds? Can you sort of, the pressures that you're producing? Yeah, we make diamonds all the time. So we, yeah, if we use graphite capital and then under pressure and temperature, like produced by our multilevel press, so we can see the diamond very easily. Yeah. And of course, if we want to see a size like a centimeter sized diamond, then we need larger press. Okay. So you're not going to get rich by mass producing diamonds then? Yeah, there's some company doing that. Oh, really? Yeah, there are things like diamonds. So are there commercial applications trying to understand materials or anything like that? Yeah, I think so these high pressure techniques, so we use it for basic research, but we can also use it for material science research. I see, and I've heard of other faculty members at UH who have actually looked at the performance of material on the stress here, either in explosions or that sort of thing. So there's a lot of relevance, even though you're basically doing pure research, as we've found in the show and many other programs, pure research has direct relevance, either to people in Hawaii or to the broader society in terms of new technologies and that sort of thing. Yeah. That's terrific. Well, we're getting near the end of the show, Ben, so let me just thank you again, and remind our viewers, you've been watching Think Tech Hawaii Research in Manoa. I'm your host, Pete McGinnis-Mart, and today we've had as our guest Dr. Ben Chen, who's an assistant researcher at the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology at UH Manoa, and thank you for watching today, and hopefully you will join us again next week at the same time. Goodbye for now.