Commission on High Pressure

Commission on High Pressure

At the 14th Congress in Perth, in 1987, a High-Pressure Group was established within the Commission on Crystallographic Apparatus to represent and support high-pressure crystallography. The subsequent decade saw an extraordinary growth in the range and quality of high-pressure diffraction studies – particularly using powder methods – on both synchrotron and neutron sources. This was stimulated by the power of present-day sources, and by major developments in detectors and high-pressure technology. The High-Pressure Group maintained a high level of activity from its inception, with a series of international workshops, starting in Munich in 1989. This culminated in a major effort by the Group for the 17th General Assembly and International Congress in Seattle in 1996, which saw a celebration of a fertile and exciting decade in two keynote lectures and six microsymposia spanning the current range of science and techniques. At the same Congress, it was decided to create our new Commission.

[Members, consultants and local workshop Chairs, Honolulu 2018]

Recent Commission activities through 2020

An article by Kamil Dziubek in the IUCr Newsletter summarises recent activities of the Commission and introduces the updated CHP website. 

Status of high-pressure crystallography in 2019

The document Towards the denser, hotter, faster and brighter future: challenges and opportunities of high-pressure crystallography [1] was prepared by members of the Commission in 2019 in order to provide information to guide the IUCr 2020 International Programme Committee meeting, and is available from this link.

[1] Kamil Dziubek, Luhong Wang and Haozhe Liu (2019). Materials Structure, 26, 91-93.


These pages are maintained by the Commission Last updated: 15 Oct 2021