Some recent investigations of materials under high pressures

By subjecting materials to high pressures one can significantly reduce interatomic and intermolecular distances. This causes drastic changes in the nature of electronic and vibrational states and also in bonding, bringing about several unusual structural, electronic and magnetic phase transitions. In addition, these studies provide a very useful data about the equation of state of the materials of interest. Several examples from our work are presented which elucidate the richness of physics under these conditions.