A pressure-induced triclinic-to-monoclinic phase transition has been caught `in the act' in the course of a wider series of high-pressure synchrotron diffraction experiments conducted on a moderately photoluminescent gold(I) compound. Our experiments illustrate how conducting a fast series of experiments, enabled by modern equipment at synchrotrons, can lead to an inaccurate estimation of the actual pressure of a phase transformation.

The influence of a diamond anvil cell (DAC) aperture, incident radiation wavelength and sample orientation in a DAC on the completeness of diffraction data collected at high pressure has been systematically analyzed. The considerable impact of sample orientation on achievable data completeness has been confirmed and quantified for all Laue classes in the form of graphical guides. These guides have been applied to predict sample orientation for structural analysis of a sample undergoing an orthorhombic → monoclinic phase transition under pressure which ensured over 90% completeness.

A series of high-pressure structure determinations using single-crystal X-ray diffraction experiments was performed for pyrene-1-carbaldehyde, a relatively simple organic compound, highly luminescent in the solid state and crystallizing in a challenging low-symmetry system. X-ray structure determinations were conducted using a multi-crystal approach. Piezochromic properties of pyrene-1-carbaldehyde were studied with UV–vis spectroscopy and periodic DFT calculations.

A new polymorph of 1,3-diacetylpyrene that is luminescent in the solid state and a prominent negative thermal expansion material has been obtained from its melt. A thorough structural characterization of this new crystal form was performed in a wide temperature and pressure range using single-crystal X-ray diffraction. Structural studies have been combined with steady-state UV–Vis spectroscopy and periodic density functional theory calculations. A previously published methodology of crystal placement in a diamond anvil cell has been successfully applied in predicting optimal 2°AP-β sample orientation, ensuring >80% data coverage and enabling unrestrained Hirshfeld atom refinements for high-pressure structures as well as analysis of anharmonic oscillations.