Developments in high pressure physics

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Abstract
During the past ten years techniques have evolved which enable a large proportion of standard atmospheric pressure laboratory measurements on materials to be made to 100 kbar. The latest apparatus developments are discussed together with the resulting advances in the understanding of various critical phenomena. Different transitional effects, from low temperature superconducting transitions and ‘Mott transitions’ to first order structural transitions in diamond-type and zinc-blende lattice materials and purely electronic tansitions, can all be observed using high pressures. Particular emphasis is placed on the use of pressure as a thermodynamic variable which can often provide more variation and information than a temperature excursion. Further trends in 1-D, 2-D materials, ferroelectrics, and other areas of solid state physics are briefly described, with a bias towards work carried out recently at the SRC high pressure facility at STL.