Issue 11, 2016

Structure determination of modulated structures by powder X-ray diffraction and electron diffraction

Abstract

Since the first discovery and description of materials, whose structures are not periodic, enormous efforts have been made in studying these aperiodic structures. With these efforts including the development of superspace group theory and structure solution algorithms, numerous incommensurately modulated structures which represent the vast majority of known aperiodic structures have been determined with single crystal X-ray diffraction data. However, the determination of modulated structures remains very difficult for polycrystalline materials. Powder X-ray diffraction and electron microscopy techniques yield remarkable information for polycrystalline materials. By combining these two methods, modulated structures of polycrystalline materials that impede solution by conventional methods can be determined. The power of these methods is illustrated with the examples of the determination of modulated structures of polycrystalline materials.

Introduction to the international collaboration

Electron diffraction methods have made enormous progress over the last decade. The determination of some structures using solely electron diffraction (ED) techniques, or in combination with powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) has now become convenient. However, the analysis of complex structures is far from routine even with high-quality single crystal X-ray diffraction (SXRD) data, and the structure analysis of complex structures from ED and/or PXRD data is more challengeable. The international collaborative researching projects of our group and of Lukáš focus on synthetizing some new compounds which have some interesting functions and developing routine PXRD and ED methods to simplify the determination of complex structures of these new compounds.

Graphical abstract: Structure determination of modulated structures by powder X-ray diffraction and electron diffraction

Article information

Article type
Highlight
Submitted
30 jun 2016
Accepted
02 sep 2016
First published
02 sep 2016

Inorg. Chem. Front., 2016,3, 1351-1362

Structure determination of modulated structures by powder X-ray diffraction and electron diffraction

Z. Zhou, L. Palatinus and J. Sun, Inorg. Chem. Front., 2016, 3, 1351 DOI: 10.1039/C6QI00219F

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements