Professor Isaac F. Silvera (Ike), the Thomas D. Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences of Physics Department at Harvard University, is visiting HPSTAR from April 26 to May 26, 2015. He is giving a series of four seminars.

On April 28, Prof. Silvera presented a talk titled “A First-order Phase Transition to Metallic Hydrogen”, which is one of the most intriguing topics in condensed matter physics.

HPSTAR newest associate staff scientist Ross Howie will be given the prestigious Jamieson Award from the International Association for the Advancement of High Pressure Science and Technology. The Jamieson Award is just “bestowed to an early-career scientist who has just completed outstanding PhD thesis research or given a single exceptional contribution in the field of high-pressure research as a postdoc.” This medal is given biannually to just one person. The winner will be recognized as the single brightest young star during the two-year period by the highest authoritative high-pressure society.

HPSTAR scientists discovered five new forms of silica under extreme pressures at room temperature. Their findings are published by Nature Communications.

Director Ho-kwang Mao and HPSTAR staff scientists participant at SMEC 2015 conference from March 8 to March 15, 2015.

Dr. Mao presented a plenary lecture titled "High Pressure - A New Dimension in Physics,Chemistry, Earth and Materials Sciences" at the conference.

Dr. Ho-kwang Mao visited Tsinghua University with a seminar lecture entitled "High Pressure - A New Dimension in Physical Sciences" on January 9, 2015.

HPSTAR holds 2014 Summer School in Shanghai Lab for July 14 to July 19.

On May 23, 2014, a paper entitled "Disproportionation of (Mg,Fe)SiO3 perovskite in Earth's deep lower mantle", written by Dr. Li Zhang and co-workers, was published in SCIENCE magazine. Dr. Li Zhang is a staff scientist of HPSTAR, Shanghai.

Invited by HPSTAR Director Ho-Kwang Mao and HPSTAR Shanghai Lab Director Bin Chen, distinguished Professor Raymond Jeanloz of the University of California at Berkeley, a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, visited HPSTAR from May 5 to May 6 .

On February 17, 2014, a paper entitled “Detecting grain rotation at the nanoscale” written by Dr. Bin Chen and co-workers, was published online in PNAS.

In the first week of January, 2014, HPSTAR scientific staff and visiting scholars together did the fourth round of high pressure experiments at SSRF. The team optimized the experimental conditions of Beamline 15 and conducted experiments to study the properties of hydrogen under high pressure with non-elastic x-ray scattering techniques.

Until October, 2013, more than 17 papers affiliated with HPSTAR have been published in the prestigious and famous magazines, such as Science, Scientific Reports, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Nature Communications, and Physical Review Letters etc. The reported work covers condensed matter physics, earth and planetary science, materials, high pressure techniques and other areas.