Description 

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In the last decades, the interest in crystallography at non-ambient conditions has continuously increased. Specifically, the number of high-temperature and high-pressure X-ray diffraction experiments pairs with the accessibility to synchrotron radiation facilities (SRF). The latter provides at date the most used techniques, thanks to the high brilliance of the source that allows excellent diffraction intensities even at extreme conditions. Moreover, the difficulty of mounting external accessories onto in house diffractometers, which usually limits the access to the reciprocal space (particularly challenging in case of single-crystal X-ray machines), makes the use of synchrotron facilities still the best option.

On the other hand, access to SRF is not always guaranteed. Further, the users have to face with practical aspects such as the relatively long waiting-time for being provided the access; the difficulty of matching possible long equilibration times at a given (P,T) condition with the limited available beamtime; the fact that a limited number of experiments can be performed in a specific time frame and most important, a limited access to the experimental set-up. For this reason and thanks to the technical improvements shown by conventional diffractometers and instruments during the last decade, several laboratories found alternative solutions, which include the development of in-house devices usually conceived ad hoc for a single specific instrument.

The aim of this symposium is to bring together scientists from different disciplines who are interested in non-ambient measurements performed at in-house laboratories. The topic is not strictly confined to X-ray diffraction techniques, but also encompasses absorption and vibrational methods such as Raman, infrared, and optical-absorption spectroscopy. The symposium will be divided in two parts: at first, invited speakers will give an overview and present the state of the art on this topic. In the second part, participants are invited to contribute via oral talks. We encourage not only the presentation of results obtained by applying in house methods, but also, and in particular, that of specific research topics where data collection at non-ambient conditions performed in house might be of potential interest. The contributions will be followed by a final discussion, where the participants will share ideas and debate on the progresses and the future perspectives for this kind of experiments at in house facilities.