Kazuki Komatsu

Kazuki Komatsu is a high-pressure crystallographer based at the University of Tokyo. He started studying the high-temperature and high-pressure behaviour of hydrous minerals at the mineralogy group in Tohoku University. After receiving his PhD in 2006, he moved to the University of Edinburgh as a visiting scientist and started studies for ice polymorphs using high-pressure neutron diffraction techniques. In 2009, he obtained a position at Geochemical Research Center (GCRC), Graduate School of Science, the University of Tokyo, and joined a project to construct a high-pressure beamline, called ‘PLANET’ in J-PARC. He has been an associate professor at GCRC since 2012, and has contributed to crystallographic studies of ice polymorphs with developing various devices for high-pressure x-ray and neutron diffraction such as the pressure-temperature variable ‘Mito system’.

About Mito system

'MITO system' is a pressure-temperature (p-T) variable system, particularly designed for neutron scattering experiments. The MITO system allows us

• to control p up to 10 GPa, and T from 80 K to 473 K
• to control p even at 80 K
• to control T with very high rate (up to ~20 K/min)
• to control T stably (± 0.1 K over 100 K, and ± 0.3 K below 100 K, approximately)
• to download p to 0 GPa even at 80 K.(it is not straight forward for other systems)

The above characteristics of MITO system are achieved by the following contrivances, those identify the MITO system to other similar systems. 

• The thermally insulated anvils using zirconia and GFRP seats. (contributes to 1, 2, 3, 5)
• Flow liquid-nitrogen by evacuating (not by compressing) nitrogen gas after through the cell and the flow-rate is precisely controlled by mass flow controller. (contributes to 4)

Please see our paper to find more details.Komatsu, K., Moriyama, M., Koizumi, T., Nakayama, K., Kagi, H., Abe, J., and Harjo, S. (2013) Development of a new P–T controlling system for neutron-scattering experiments. High Pressure Research, 33(1), 208-213.

and a recent review on neutron diffraction and ice polymorphs. Komatsu K., Neutrons meet ice polymorphs, Crystallography Reviews, 2022
doi.org/10.1080/0889311X.2022.2127148