Hybrid processing combining electrostatic levitation and laser heating: Application to terrestrial analogues of asteroid materials

Electrostatic levitation combined with laser heating is becoming a mature technique that has been used for several fundamental and applied studies in fluid and materials sciences (synthesis, property determination, solidification studies, atomic dynamic studies, etc.). This is attributable to the numerous processing conditions (containerless, wide heating temperature range, cooling rates, atmospheric compositions, etc.) that levitation and radiative heating offer, as well as to the variety of diagnostics tools that can be used. In this paper, we describe the facility, highlighting the combined advantages of electrostatic levitation and laser processing. The various capabilities of the facility are discussed and are exemplified with the measurements of the density of selected iron-nickel alloys taken over the liquid phase.