We know that oxygen is solid at room temperature and may be red, orange, yellow, magenta or black.
We know that cesium iodide and xenon are metals.
We polymerize CO, HCN, and other multiply bonded carbon compounds in order to recover the polymers and to characterize their unusual properties.
We study high explosives (RDX, HMX, TATB, and HNS) at high pressures and high temperatures to understand whether accidents might be prevented.
We ask what new and interesting uses can be made of these facts and interesting predictions based upon these observations.
Will N2 polymerize? Can we make nitrogen metal, as predicted by theory?
Can we duplicate in our laboratory the centers of the Earth, Neptune, and other planets and decide what chemistry occurs in these bodies?
We built a state-of-the-art diffractometer at one of the world's most intense x-ray sources, UC's 31-pole wiggler at the SSRL synchrotron, and use it to study problems as diverse as the structures of materials in the Earth and how anesthetics change phospholipid micelles.
A distinctive feature of our work is that we use conventional laboratory instruments; only our samples are microscopic. Many techniques we develop, therefore, are appropriate to other "micro-environments" and lead us to collaborate on analyzing thin diamond-like films and characterizing organic surface photoreactions.