Electron crystallography goes organic

Abstract

When chemists want to determine the structure of a molecule, they typically turn to X-ray crystallography. But chemists often find they can’t grow the large, high-quality crystals required for analysis. Now, a similar technique, known as electron crystallography, which works with smaller crystals, is poised to become an alternative. Two teams working independently show the method quickly determines the structures of small organic compounds, offering organic chemists the ability to analyze a wider array of small molecules than they can with X-ray crystallography. Electron crystallography is similar to X-ray crystallography, but scientists study the diffraction pattern made by firing electrons rather than X-rays at a crystal. Electrons interact more strongly with the molecules in crystals than X-rays do, which means researchers can use vanishingly small amounts of material—crystals as small as 100 nm. Crystals studied with X-ray crystallography typically need to be at least 5 µm in all dimensions. Scientists