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Dr Jonathan CharmantSingle Crystal X-ray DiffractionEmail jon.charmant@bris.ac.uk |
Single crystal X-ray diffraction often provides conclusive proof of the solid state structure of a new compound. We use this technique to characterise a huge variety of new compounds both organic and inorganic.
Often we are concerned with more than just the molecular structure of a crystal. We also wish to find out about the interactions between molecules that help to build the crystal. To this end we recently determined the structure of ammonium dl-tartrate and determined the Miller indices of the crystal faces. This helps to explain the mechanism by which hollow silica fibres may be grown by using these crystals as a templates.1
Complicated new cluster species can only be fully characterised by an X-ray diffraction study. The solid state structure of a dimeric acetylide complex (illustrated in Figure 1) contains three of these dimeric units aggregated into hexameric units with the dimers held together by Pt...Pt interactions similar to those found in gold cluster chemistry.2
Bristol was one of the first chemistry departments in the world to invest in a SMART area detector diffractometer. The structure determination of Cu3(TMA)2 (illustrated in Figure 2) provides a good example of the sort of crystallographic problem that can now be solved using this technology.3
A research project in this group would involve the determination of the crystal structures of new compounds prepared by research groups within the Inorganic Section. Such a project would involve the use of state of the art X-ray equipment including a new high-intensity X-ray source SMART 6000 area detector machine.
Additional information about the activities of our group can be found on the Structural Chemistry Home Page.