Electron Crystallography of Organic Molecules

Abstract

Publisher Summary Electron crystallography is a term that has been used to describe a quantitative crystal structure determination based on electron diffraction intensity data and/or high resolution electron microscope images. This chapter demonstrates the way experimental diffraction intensity data or images can be used in structure analyses of a wide variety of organic and biological materials to yield results that can be compared favorably with X-ray crystal structures. While electron crystallographic techniques certainly are subject to their own unique constraints for the collection of scattering data that can be interpreted directly in an ab inito structure determination, the overwhelmingly negative view of these techniques by much of the crystallographic community often is, in fact, totally unwarranted and is based largely on a number of unfortunate historical misunderstandings.