X-ray diffraction studies of oriented lipid bilayers

This brief review of the X-ray diffraction technique used to study oriented lipid bilayer systems is primarily intended to demonstrate to the nonspecialist in the lipid field the amount of detailed information that can be obtained simply by visually inspecting the diffraction pattern and making some measurements with a ruler and protractor. The information that can be extracted from X-ray diffraction data is illustrated by selected examples of our most recent work.Key words: X-ray diffraction, oriented multibilayers, electron density profiles, subgel phase, phase problem.