New developments in multiple simultaneous diagnostics at HPCAT

The HPCAT facility, located at Sector 16 of the Advanced Photon Source (APS) which is currently under a major upgrade, has been established for high-pressure research in multidisciplinary scientific areas by integrating multiple x-ray diffraction, x-ray spectroscopy, and x-ray tomography probes. Current state-of-the-art high-pressure synchrotron facilities including HPCAT are limited to spatial resolution of 3-10 $\mu $m. Since pressure is force per unit area and ultrahigh pressures are reached at diminishingly minute samples, high spatial resolution would be the key for the next-generation advancement to TPa pressures beyond the current maximum at $\sim $400 GPa, and will impact an exceedingly broad scientific frontier. These include the long-standing quest of low-temperature metallic hydrogen, and the newly recognized complexities of the apparently ``simple'' alkali metals. The order-of-magnitude higher resolutions will enable quantifications of grain-to-grain interactions under pressure, precise determinations of equations of state and pressure calibration, combinatorial studies of a large array of samples, and isolation of a $\mu $m-size single crystal from a polycrystalline aggregate. The potential impacts on high pressure research in several scientific areas will be discussed.