We have recently carried out novel and exploratory dynamic experiments where the sample follows a prescribed thermodynamic path. In typical dynamic compression experiments, the samples are thermodynamically limited to the principal Hugoniot or quasi-isentrope. With recent developments in the functionally graded material impactor, we can prescribe and shape the applied pressure profile with similarly-shaped, non-monotonic impedance profile in the impactor. Previously inaccessible thermodynamic states beyond the quasi-isentropes and Hugoniot can now be reached in dynamic experiments with these impactors. In the light gas-gun experiments on copper reported here, we recorded the particle velocities of the Cu-LiF interfaces and employed hydrodynamic simulations to relate them to the thermodynamic phase diagram. Peak pressures for these experiments were on the order of megabars, and the time-scales ranged from nanoseconds to several microseconds. The strain rates of the quasi-isentropic experiments are approximately 10 4 s −1 to 10 6 s −1 in samples with thicknesses up to 5 mm. Though developed at a light-gas gun facility, such shaped pressure-profiles are also feasible in principle with laser ablation or magnetic driven compression techniques allowing for new directions to be taken in high pressure physics. 62.50.+p; 1 The ability to attain extreme pressure and temperature conditions has given investigators in fields as diverse as biology, condensed matter physics, and earth and planetary sciences the tools to explore material behavior at megabar pressures and at thousands of degrees [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. With these tools, they have simulated the physical conditions in the Earth's core and planetary interiors [1,2], probed a wide range of high pressure and temperature material properties [5][6][7][8][9][10], synthesized novel materials [11,12], and solved long standing physics problems such as the metallization of hydrogen [13]. These extreme conditions were achieved through three main techniques: static, shock and quasi-isentropic compressions [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. Since the pioneering work by P. W. Bridgman [25], advances in diamond anvil cell technology have pushed the peak pressure by static compression from 200 kbars to more than 4 megabars [21,22]. Similarly, shock compression and quasi-isentropic compression techniques [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] can load samples to megabar pressures in a fraction of a nanosecond to microseconds.Future advances will likely push the peak pressure higher and extend the pressure loading time. However, these techniques will continue to be limited to a portion of the high pressure phase diagram by their characteristic loading rate and a single thermodynamic path. In particular, static compression yields continuous states on an isotherm (or an isochore, when heating), with a slow loading rate of˙ < 10 1 s −1 . Shock compression rapidly loads a sample at strain rates of˙ > ∼ 10 9 s −1 to a single state on the Hugoniot -...