High Pressure Tactics

Participants in the meeting on High Pressure Techniques.

Scientists and students from Spain, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Poland, the Ukraine and Russia participated in the International School on High Pressure Techniques, held in Poland in September 1996. The school was organized by the High Pressure Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences UNIPRESS. S. Porowski, director of UNIPRESS, opened the school with a lecture on advanced techniques for growing single crystals of gallium nitride. The school included lectures on Diamond Anvil Cell principles (M. Tkacz), calibration (T. Sosin) and advanced X-ray applications (S. Werner and A. Katrusiak), gas and liquid high pressure cells J. Szczepek) the combined effect of high pressure and high temperature gradients (K. Ratzke) and selection of materials for construction of high pressure vessels (J. Meshkov and J. Kwolinski). Applications described include high pressure effects on electron transport (T. Suski and C. Skierbiszewski), the band structure of semiconductors (J. M. Baranowski), diffusion in solids (G. Erdelyiand), the thermodynamics and kinetics of grain boundaries (W. Lojkowski, the school chairman).

The participants visited labs of crystal growth, hydrostatic extrusion, hot isostatic sintering and ultrasound, optical and X-ray analysis. They attended Moniushko's opera, Halka, and a cello and piano concert, and gathered around the fireplace in the UNIPRESS villa during cold September evenings. The school was supervised by P. Pajestka, Deputy Dir. of the Dept for International Cooperation and European Integration of the Committee for Scientific Research and sponsored by the European Comm., the Polish Committee for Scientific Research, the Polish Academy of Sciences and HPRC Central European Initiative Centre of Excellence. A similar school is planned for next year.