High temperature diffraction from aerodynamically levitated materials

Aerodynamic levitation combined with laser beam heating has become an established technique for studying the structure of materials at ultra-high temperatures and under non-equilibrium conditions. This article briefly highlights some recent technical and scientific advancements in understanding the relationships between a material's behavior and its structure, investigated using diffraction methods. It focuses on three evolving frontiers: sophisticated sample environments for accessing metastable states and reactive chemistries, high-flux photon and neutron probes to reveal atomic structure, and advanced computational modeling frameworks. Free from contamination, containerless processing (levitation) can minimize heterogeneous nucleation at the interface, enabling access to deeply supercooled melts or providing insights into chemical processes, such as steelmaking, aerospace materials and ultra-high temperature ceramics manufacturing. Additionally, the study of highly radioactive materials, including plutonium oxide are now feasible, and recent advancements in machine learning methods can extract bonding information well beyond that obtained using standard diffraction analyses. The prospect for future opportunities is discussed with a focus on hyperbaric levitation to extend the range of extreme chemical conditions.