Electronic phenomena at high pressure

High pressure research is undertaken either to investigate intrinsically high pressure phenomena or in order to get a better understanding of the effect of the chemical environment on properties or processes at one atmosphere. Studies of electronic properties which fall in each area are presented. Many molecules and complexes can assume in the excited state different molecular arrangements and intermolecular forces depending on the medium. Their luminescence emission is then very different in a rigid or a fluid medium. With pressure one can vary the viscosity of the medium by a factor of 107 and thus control the distribution and rate of crossing between the excited state conformations. In rare earth chelates the efficiency of 4f-4f emission of the rare earth is controlled by the feeding from the singlet and triplet levels of the organic ligand. These ligand levels can be strongly shifted by pressure. A study of the effect of pressure on the emission efficiency permits one to understand the effect of ligand chemistry at one atmosphere. At high pressure electronic states can be sufficiently perturbed to provide new ground states. In EDA complexes these new ground states exhibit unusual chemical reactivity and new products