Departmental Service

Single Crystal X-ray Service

The Chemical Crystallography Laboratory provides the Crystallographic Service for research groups at Durham University. The service is run by Dr. Dmitry Yufit and Dr. Toby Blundell (room CG072, tel. 42004) who are the first points of enquiries.

Single Crystal Service

• ~450

  Structures Collected Per Year
• 30-500 K

  Collection Temperature Range
• 24 hour

  Target Turnaround Time

Last year (2022) this laboratory achieved around 450 completed service structure solutions – and this is on top of our own usual research work!

The service provides crystal structure determinations at the temperature range 30-500K using one of our two state-of-the-art Bruker D8 Venture CCD area detector diffractometers.

These facilities allow fast screening of samples. The turnaround time from sample submission to the e-mailing of the results to a chemist takes from several hours to 2-4 days (in ~75% cases).

The Mo-Radiation and temperature of 120K is a standard experimental mode.

We have regular beam time allocations at the Diamond Light Source Synchrotron on beamline i19 for particularly small (< 100 µm) or challenging samples.

The service also provides a number of non-standard experimental techniques:

–  Various methods of handling sensitive and non-stable samples;

– Multi-temperature (30-500K) measurements (mainly used for studying phase transitions);

– In situ crystallisation of non-solid under ambient conditions compounds ;

– In situ laser irradiation of the crystal for studying photo-induced solid-state reactions and photochromism;

– Various high-pressure attachments.

However, usually we do not provide a crystallization service. Useful practical tips for growing your crystals can be found in: “How to grow good single crystals” by O.Chetina.

The usual procedure of submission of the samples to Crystallographic Service can be found here.

We are also providing crystallographic service to outside parties on a commercial basis.

In addition, X-ray powder diffraction of polycrystalline samples between 15 K and 1500 K is also available. Phase identification and quantitative analysis are possible using this equipment. Please, contact Dr. J.S.O.Evans for more information on this service.