Strategies for solving neighboring-element problems: a case study using resonant X-ray diffraction and pulsed neutron diffraction to examine Sr8Ga16Ge30

2003 ◽  
Vol 36 (5) ◽  
pp. 1182-1189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuegang Zhang ◽  
Angus P. Wilkinson ◽  
George S. Nolas ◽  
Peter L. Lee ◽  
Jason P. Hodges

The distribution of gallium and germanium over the available framework sites in the type-I clathrate Sr8Ga16Ge30(Pm\bar{3}n) has been determined by powder diffraction using several different combinations of resonant scattering data sets, collected at energies close to both the Ga and GeK-edges, and time-of-flight (TOF) neutron diffraction data. Based on a combined refinement using three X-ray data sets and a composition restraint, the fractional occupancies of the 6c, 16iand 24ksites by gallium are estimated to be 0.705 (5), 0.181 (3) and 0.376 (2), respectively. The required resonant scattering factors were determined by Kramers–Kronig transformation from X-ray absorption spectra. The results from refinements using single data sets and various combinations of data sets are compared. The high degree of scattering contrast that resonant diffraction can provide leads to very precise site occupancies. However, systematic errors in the resonant diffraction intensity data can considerably degrade the accuracy of the results. The use of a carefully chosen multiple-data-set strategy can minimize bias in the refinement results by reducing the correlations between site occupancies, atomic displacement parameters and histogram scale factors. The effect of errors in the resonant scattering factors on the refinement results was also examined.

2006 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 262-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. J. Davies

Synchrotron sources offer high-brilliance X-ray beams which are ideal for spatially and time-resolved studies. Large amounts of wide- and small-angle X-ray scattering data can now be generated rapidly, for example, during routine scanning experiments. Consequently, the analysis of the large data sets produced has become a complex and pressing issue. Even relatively simple analyses become difficult when a single data set can contain many thousands of individual diffraction patterns. This article reports on a new software application for the automated analysis of scattering intensity profiles. It is capable of batch-processing thousands of individual data files without user intervention. Diffraction data can be fitted using a combination of background functions and non-linear peak functions. To compliment the batch-wise operation mode, the software includes several specialist algorithms to ensure that the results obtained are reliable. These include peak-tracking, artefact removal, function elimination and spread-estimate fitting. Furthermore, as well as non-linear fitting, the software can calculate integrated intensities and selected orientation parameters.


Author(s):  
Julian C.-H. Chen ◽  
Zoë Fisher ◽  
Andrey Y. Kovalevsky ◽  
Marat Mustyakimov ◽  
B. Leif Hanson ◽  
...  

The room-temperature (RT) X-ray structure of H/D-exchanged crambin is reported at 0.85 Å resolution. As one of the very few proteins refined with anisotropic atomic displacement parameters at two temperatures, the dynamics of atoms in the RT and 100 K structures are compared. Neutron diffraction data from an H/D-exchanged crambin crystal collected at the Protein Crystallography Station (PCS) showed diffraction beyond 1.1 Å resolution. This is the highest resolution neutron diffraction reported to date for a protein crystal and will reveal important details of the anisotropic motions of H and D atoms in protein structures.


2009 ◽  
Vol 42 (6) ◽  
pp. 1110-1121 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Dittrich ◽  
C. B. Hübschle ◽  
J. J. Holstein ◽  
F. P. A. Fabbiani

The limiting factor for charge-density studies is crystal quality. Although area detection and low temperatures enable redundant data collection, only compounds that form well diffracting single crystals without disorder are amenable to these studies. If thermal motion and electron density ρ(r) were de-convoluted, multipole parameters could also be refined with lower-resolution data, such as those commonly collected for macromolecules. Using the invariom database for first refining conventional parameters (x,y,zand atomic displacement parameters), de-convolution can be achieved. In a subsequent least-squares refinement of multipole parameters only, information on the charge density becomes accessible also for data not fulfilling charge-density requirements. A critical aspect of this procedure is the missing information on the correlation between refined and non-refined parameters. This correlation is investigated in detail by comparing a full multipole refinement on high-resolution and a blocked refinement on `normal-resolution' data sets of ciprofloxacin hexahydrate. Topological properties and dipole moments are shown to be in excellent agreement for the two refinements. A `normal-resolution' data set of ciprofloxacin hydrochloride 1.4-hydrate is also evaluated in this manner.


2002 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 356-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Wu ◽  
B. L. Rodrigues ◽  
P. Coppens

It is shown that incomplete absorption of the X-ray beam in the phosphor of an area detector causes an incident-angle dependence of the recorded X-ray intensities. An energy scan of a SMART-6000 CCD (charge-coupled device) phosphor using synchrotron radiation shows the correction to be of importance above about 17 keV. Intensities of single reflections, each collected several times at different angles of incidence on the phosphor surface, show a pronounced angle-dependence at shorter wavelengths. Both conventional structural refinement and multipole charge density studies confirm that an oblique-incidence correction leads to improved quality of the results. Atomic displacement parameters will be systematically biased when the correction is not applied. For a λ = 0.394 Å data set, neglecting the correction gives rise to artifacts in the deformation density maps that are likely to lead to misinterpretation of the experimental results.


2014 ◽  
Vol 70 (6) ◽  
pp. 679-681 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mads R. V. Jørgensen ◽  
Venkatesha R. Hathwar ◽  
Mattia Sist ◽  
Xiaoping Wang ◽  
Christina M. Hoffmann ◽  
...  

Accurate atomic displacement parameters (ADPs) are a good indication of high-quality diffraction data. Results from the newly commissioned time-of-flight Laue diffractometer TOPAZ at the SNS are presented. Excellent agreement is found between ADPs derived independently from the neutron and X-ray data emphasizing the high quality of the data from the time-of-flight Laue diffractometer.


1999 ◽  
Vol 55 (5) ◽  
pp. 767-787 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank H. Herbstein ◽  
Bo Brummerstedt Iversen ◽  
Moshe Kapon ◽  
Finn Krebs Larsen ◽  
Georg Kent Hellerup Madsen ◽  
...  

The crystal structure of benzoylacetone (1-phenyl-1,3-butanedione, C10H10O2; P21/c, Z = 4) has been determined at 300, 160 (both Mo Kα X-ray diffraction, XRD), 20 (λ = 1.012 Å neutron diffraction, ND) and 8 K (Ag Kα XRD), to which should be added earlier structure determinations at 300 (Mo Kα XRD and ND, λ = 0.983 Å) and 143 K (Mo Kα XRD). Cell dimensions have been measured over the temperature range 8–300 K; a first- or second-order phase change does not occur within this range. The atomic displacement parameters have been analyzed using the thermal motion analysis program THMA11. The most marked change in the molecular structure is in the disposition of the methyl group, which has a librational amplitude of ∼20° at 20 K and is rotationally disordered at 300 K. The lengths of the two C—O bonds in the cis-enol ring do not differ significantly, nor do those of the two C—C bonds, nor do these lengths change between 8 and 300 K. An ND difference synthesis (20 K) shows a single enol hydrogen trough (rather than two half H atoms), approximately centered between the O atoms; analogous results were obtained by XRD (8 K). It is inferred that the enol hydrogen is in a broad, flat-bottomed single-minimum potential well between the O atoms, with a libration amplitude of ∼0.30 Å at 8 K. These results suggest that at 8 K the cis-enol ring in benzoylacetone has quasi-aromatic character, in agreement with the results of high-level ab initio calculations made for benzoylacetone [Schiøtt et al. (1998). J. Am. Chem. Soc. 120, 12117–12124]. Application [in a related paper by Madsen et al. (1998). J. Am. Chem. Soc. 120, 10040–10045] of multipolar analysis and topological methods to the charge density obtained from the combined lowest temperature X-ray and neutron data provides evidence for an intramolecular hydrogen bond with partly electrostatic and partly covalent character, and large p-delocalization in the cis-enol ring. This is in good agreement with what is expected from the observed bond lengths. Analysis of the total available (through the Cambridge Structural Database, CSD) population of cis-enol ring geometries confirms earlier reports of correlation between the degree of bond localization in the pairs of C—C and C—O bonds, but does not show the dependence of bond localization on d(O...O) that was reported earlier for a more restricted sample. It is suggested that the only reliable method of determining whether the enol hydrogen is found in a single or double potential well is by low-temperature X-ray or (preferably) neutron diffraction.


Minerals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 272
Author(s):  
Seungyeol Lee ◽  
Huifang Xu ◽  
Hongwu Xu ◽  
Joerg Neuefeind

The crystal structure of moganite from the Mogán formation on Gran Canaria has been re-investigated using high-resolution synchrotron X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray/neutron pair distribution function (PDF) analyses. Our study for the first time reports the anisotropic atomic displacement parameters (ADPs) of a natural moganite. Rietveld analysis of synchrotron XRD data determined the crystal structure of moganite with the space group I2/a. The refined unit-cell parameters are a = 8.7363(8), b = 4.8688(5), c = 10.7203(9) Å, and β = 90.212(4)°. The ADPs of Si and O in moganite were obtained from X-ray and neutron PDF analyses. The shapes and orientations of the anisotropic ellipsoids determined from X-ray and neutron measurements are similar. The anisotropic ellipsoids for O extend along planes perpendicular to the Si-Si axis of corner-sharing SiO4 tetrahedra, suggesting precession-like movement. Neutron PDF result confirms the occurrence of OH over some of the tetrahedral sites. We postulate that moganite nanomineral is stable with respect to quartz in hypersaline water. The ADPs of moganite show a similar trend as those of quartz determined by single-crystal XRD. In short, the combined methods can provide high-quality structural parameters of moganite nanomineral, including its ADPs and extra OH position at the surface. This approach can be used as an alternative means for solving the structures of crystals that are not large enough for single-crystal XRD measurements, such as fine-grained and nanocrystalline minerals formed in various geological environments.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 044701
Author(s):  
Zhen Su ◽  
Medhanjali Dasgupta ◽  
Frédéric Poitevin ◽  
Irimpan I. Mathews ◽  
Henry van den Bedem ◽  
...  

2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (5) ◽  
pp. 1113-1120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esko Oksanen ◽  
François Dauvergne ◽  
Adrian Goldman ◽  
Monika Budayova-Spano

H atoms play a central role in enzymatic mechanisms, but H-atom positions cannot generally be determined by X-ray crystallography. Neutron crystallography, on the other hand, can be used to determine H-atom positions but it is experimentally very challenging. Yeast inorganic pyrophosphatase (PPase) is an essential enzyme that has been studied extensively by X-ray crystallography, yet the details of the catalytic mechanism remain incompletely understood. The temperature instability of PPase crystals has in the past prevented the collection of a neutron diffraction data set. This paper reports how the crystal growth has been optimized in temperature-controlled conditions. To stabilize the crystals during neutron data collection a Peltier cooling device that minimizes the temperature gradient along the capillary has been developed. This device allowed the collection of a full neutron diffraction data set.


2014 ◽  
Vol 70 (a1) ◽  
pp. C187-C187
Author(s):  
Alison Edwards

"The renaissance in Laue studies - at neutron sources - provides us with access to single crystal neutron diffraction data for synthetic compounds without requiring synthesis of prohibitively large amounts of compound or improbably large crystals. Such neutron diffraction studies provide vital data where proof of the presence or absence of hydrogen in particular locations is required and which cannot validly be proved by X-ray studies. Since the commissioning of KOALA at OPAL in 2009[1] we have obtained numerous data sets which demonstrate the vital importance of measuring data even where the extent of the diffraction pattern is at relatively low resolution - especially when compared to that obtainable for the same compound with X-rays. In the Laue experiment performed with a fixed radius detector, data reduction is only feasible for crystals in the ""goldilocks"" zone – where the unit cell is relatively large for the detector, a correspondingly low resolution diffraction pattern in which adjacent spots are less affected by overlap will yield more data against which a structure can be refined than a pattern of higher resolution – one where neighbouring spots overlap rendering both unusable (in our current methodology). Analogous application of powder neutron diffraction in such determinations is also considered. Single crystal neutron diffraction studies of several important compounds (up to 5KDa see figure below)[2] in which precise determination of hydride content by neutron diffraction was pivotal to the final formulation will be presented. The neutron data sets typically possess 20% or fewer unique data at substantially "lower resolution" than the corresponding X-ray data sets. Careful refinement clearly reveals chemical detail which is typically unexplored in related X-ray diffraction studies reporting high profile chemistry despite the synthetic route being one which hydride ought to be considered/excluded in product formulation."


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document