High-Pressure Studies of Crystalline Materials.

Despite the tremendous advances in the techniques and equipment for carrying out high-pressure crystallography, the application or exploration of the high-pressure variable in detailed structural studies remains rare. The chapters in this book provide a set of lecture notes and supplementary material for a course on high pressure crystallography. The material comprises state-of-the-art reviews of high-pressure experiments using X-ray and neutron diffraction techniques at synchrotron and neutron facilities and in the laboratory, as well as complementary experimental high-pressure techniques and theoretical methods for investigating matter at elevated pressures. The materials studies range from elemental solids and liquids to inorganic compounds, minerals, organic compounds, clathrates and pharmaceutical compounds, to large biological molecules such as proteins and viruses. The book provides a reference for workers in high-pressure science wishing to learn more about crystallography and for established crystallographers potentially interested in high pressure as a variable, as well as an introductory guide to new researchers in the field.

This unique book is devoted to the theme of crystallographic studies at high pressure. It places emphasis on the phenomena characteristic to the compressed state of matter, as well as experimental and theoretical techniques, used to study these phenomena.

Volume 41 of Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry introduces to the field of high-temperature and high-pressure crystal chemistry, both as a guide to the dramatically improved techniques and as a summary of the voluminous crystal chemical literature on minerals at high temperature and pressure. The three parts of the book introduces crystal chemical considerations of special relevance to non-ambient crystallographic studies, reviews the temperature- and pressure-variation of structures in major mineral groups and presents experimental techniques for high-temperature and high-pressure studies of single crystals and polycrystalline samples as well as special considerations relating to diffractometry on samples at non-ambient conditions.

High-pressure materials research has been revolutionized in the past few years due to technological breakthroughs in the diamond anvil cell (DAC), shock wave compression and molecular dynamic simulation (MD) methods. The application of high pressure, especially together with high temperature, has revealed exciting modifications of physical and chemical properties even in the simplest molecular materials.Besides the fundamental importance of these studies to understand the composition and the dynamics of heart and planets' interior, new materials possessing peculiar characteristics of hardness and composition have been synthesized at very high pressure, while unexpected chemical reactions of simple molecules to polymers and amorphous compounds have been found at milder conditions.The variety of the phenomena observed in these extreme conditions and of the materials involved provides a common ground bridging scientific communities with different cultural and experimental backgrounds. This monograph will provide a timely opportunity to report on recent progress in the field.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Rietveld Refinement in the Characterization of Crystalline Materials" that was published in Crystals

The Novel Mechanisms of Superconductivity Conference was initially conceived in the early part of 1986 as a small, 2-1/2 day workshop of 40-70 scientists, both theorists and experimentalists interested in exploring the possible evidence for exotic, non phononic superconductivity. Of course, the historic discoveries of high temperature oxide superconductors by Bednorz and Mftller and the subsequent enhancements by the Houston/Alabama groups made such a small conference impractical. The conference necessarily had to expand, 2-1/2 days became 4-1/2 days and superconductivity in the high Tc oxides became the largest single topic in the workshop. In fact, this conference became the first major conference on this topic and thus, these proceedings are also the first maj or publication. However, heavy fermion, organic and low carrier concentration superconductors remained a very important part of this workshop and articles by the leaders in these fields are included in these proceedings. Ultimately the workshop hosted rearly 400 scientists, students and media including representatives from the maj or research groups in the U.S., Europe, Japan and the Soviet Union.

Developing and testing novel energetic materials is an expanding branch of the materials sciences. Reaction, detonation or explosion of such materials invariably produce extremely high pressures and temperatures. To study the equations-of-state (EOS) of energetic materials in extreme regimes both shock and static high pressure studies are required. The present volume is an introduction and review of theoretical, experimental and numerical aspects of static compression of such materials. Chapter 1 introduces the basic experimental tool, the diamond anvil pressure cell and the observational techniques used with it such as optical microscopy, infrared spectrometry and x-ray diffraction. Chapter 2 outlines the principles of high-nitrogen energetic materials synthesis. Chapters 3 and 4, examine and compare various EOS formalisms and data fitting for crystalline and non-crystalline materials, respectively. Chapter 5 details the reaction kinetics of detonating energetic materials. Chapter 6 investigates the interplay between static and dynamic (shock) studies. Finally, Chapters 7 and 8 introduce numerical simulations: molecular dynamics of energetic materials under either hydrostatic or uni-axial stress and ab-inito treatments of defects in crystalline materials. This timely volume meets the growing demand for a state-of-the art introduction and review of the most relevant aspects of static compression of energetic materials and will be a valuable reference to researchers and scientists working in academic, industrial and governmental research laboratories.

This volume summarises recent developments and possible future directions for small molecule X-ray crystallography. It reviews specific areas of crystallography which are rapidly developing and places them in a historical context. The interdisciplinary nature of the technique is emphasised throughout. It introduces and describes the chemical crystallographic and synchrotron facilities which have been at the cutting edge of the subject in recent decades. The introduction of new computer-based algorithms has proved to be very influential and stimulated and accelerated the growth of new areas of science. The challenges which will arise from the acquisition of ever larger databases are considered and the potential impact of artificial intelligence techniques stressed. Recent advances in the refinement and analysis of X-ray crystal structures are highlighted. In addition the recent developments in time resolved single crystal X-ray crystallography are discussed. Recent years have demonstrated how this technique has provided important mechanistic information on solid-state reactions and complements information from traditional spectroscopic measurements. The volume highlights how the prospect of being able to routinely “watch” chemical processes as they occur provides an exciting possibility for the future. Recent advances in X-ray sources and detectors that have also contributed to the possibility of dynamic single-crystal X-ray diffraction methods are presented. The coupling of crystallography and quantum chemical calculations provides detailed information about electron distributions in crystals and has resulted in a more detailed understanding of chemical bonding. The volume will be of interest to chemists and crystallographers with an interest in the synthesis, characterisation and physical and catalytic properties of solid-state materials. Postgraduate students entering the field will benefit from a historical introduction to the subject and a description of those techniques which are currently used. Since X-ray crystallography is used so widely in modern chemistry it will serve to alert senior chemists to those developments which will become routine in coming decades. It will also be of interest to the broad community of computational chemists who study chemical systems.