The birth and development of laser heating in diamond anvil cells

In 1968 Taro Takahashi and I observed a phase transition that resulted from laser heating under pressure in a diamond anvil cell. Using a ruby laser, we successfully converted graphite to diamond. We soon realized that the ruby laser had such limited capabilities that we acquired a yttrium-aluminum-garnet (YAG) laser that could be used in both continuous and pulsed modes. The road to successfully applying the technique was not without a few bumps. Thirty years later, these seem more amusing than they did at the time. It was with the YAG laser that Ming and Liu investigated a number of silicate phase transitions important to our understanding of the earth's mantle. Since then it has been gratifying to watch as others have adopted the technique and made many important contributions with it. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.