INTRODUCTION TO HIGH-PRESSURE SCIENCE

To a common person pressure is just one of the parameters that describe a thermodynamic state. We all hear about it in everyday weather forecasts, and most of us do not associate it with anything particularly unique. Probably the most intuitive idea of the effect of high-pressure comes from movies, where submarine sinking to the bottom of the ocean is gradually crushed by the surrounding water, until its hull implodes. Why, then hundreds of scientists throughout the world spent their lifelong careers studying high-pressure phenomena? Despite all the developments in experimental technologies and instrumentation, modern scientist has very few tools that allow him or her to "grab" two atoms and bring them, in a very controllable way, closer together. Being able to achieve this task means the ability to directly probe interatomic interaction potentials and can cause transformations as dramatic as turning of a common gas into solid metal. Before the reader delves into more advanced topics described later in this book, this introductory chapter aims to explain several elementary, but extremely important concepts in high-pressure science. We will start with a brief discussion of laboratory devices used to produce pressure, address the issue of hydrostaticity, elastic and plastic compression, and will conclude with a short discussion of unique effects of anisotropic stress.