Lukáš Palatinus: 3D electron diffraction – a new tool for materials science

Lukáš Palatinus

Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague 8, 18221, Czechia

3D electron diffraction – a new tool for materials science

Modern material science, chemistry and biochemistry work with more and more complex materials and synthetic routes that often do not yield large single crystals. If the maximum available crystal size reaches only a few hundred nanometres or even less, the only practically feasible approach to single crystal structure analysis is the application of electron diffraction.

Single crystal structure analysis by electron diffraction faces a number of fundamental as well as technical problems. However, many of these problems have been at least partly solved in the past few years, and the fast development of the method has received a lot of attention and positive reception in the crystallographic and materials-science community.

At present, three-dimensional electron diffraction (3D ED) methods are being used in many laboratories almost routinely to analyze the crystal structures of a wide variety of materials, ranging from metals, oxides and other inorganic materials through minerals, framework and porous materials to organic molecular crystals and macromolecular crystals.

The seminar will briefly review the basics and history of the 3D ED methods and illustrate its potential on a few selected materials.

*corresponding author: e-mail: palat@fzu.cz