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Examination of Single Crystals: Optical and X-Ray Diffraction Practice

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Book cover Structure Determination by X-ray Crystallography

Abstract

The preliminary optical examination of crystalline specimens is interesting and useful in its own right and is a major tool still employed by mineralogists and geologists. However, in structure determinations with modern equipment, it is not uncommon nowadays to by-pass this step and proceed immediately with X-ray studies. This is because in most cases, the X-ray technique is straightforward and test data can be quickly scanned with a single-crystal X-ray diffractometer, Sects. 5.5 and 5.6, or with area detector (see Sect. 5.7), and the suitability and quality of the crystal assessed. There are other situations, however, where complications may arise, for example, because of an unusual crystal habit, Sect. 5.3.5, pseudosymmetry, Sects. 7.2.2, 7.5.4, and Sect. 8.5.3, or twinning, Sect. 5.10. In such cases, it might be possible to extract useful information from an optical examination of a crystal before the more detailed, costly and time-consuming X-ray methods are tried.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Similar to Geiger counters.

  2. 2.

    Hamamatsu Photonics KK C10158DK.

  3. 3.

    http://www.bruker-axs.com/x8_proteum.html

  4. 4.

    http://www.bruker-axs.com/chemical_crystallography.html.

  5. 5.

    http://www.rigaku.com/smc/scxmini.html.

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Data Collection

Data Collection Services

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  • Structure refinement: SHELXL-97 (Sheldrick GM (1997) University of Göttingen)

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Surrey, Guildford, England

    Mark Ladd (Formerly Head of Chemical Physics)

  2. Birkbeck College, University of London, London, England

    Rex Palmer (Reader Emeritus in Structural Crystallography, Visiting Professor in X-ray Crystallography, Senior Visiting Research Fellow)

  3. University of Greenwich, London, England

    Rex Palmer (Reader Emeritus in Structural Crystallography, Visiting Professor in X-ray Crystallography, Senior Visiting Research Fellow)

  4. Christ Church University, Canterbury, England

    Rex Palmer (Reader Emeritus in Structural Crystallography, Visiting Professor in X-ray Crystallography, Senior Visiting Research Fellow)

Authors
  1. Mark Ladd
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  2. Rex Palmer
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Ladd, M., Palmer, R. (2013). Examination of Single Crystals: Optical and X-Ray Diffraction Practice. In: Structure Determination by X-ray Crystallography. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3954-7_5

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