X-ray Diffraction

Arkady Ellern is the CIF X-ray crystallographerThe X-Ray Diffraction Laboratory is engaged in a number of ongoing activities, all broadly related to the structure and properties of molecular crystals. We apply a variety of experimental and computational techniques to these investigations. 

Dr. Arkady Ellern, Research Scienstist III, is a crystallographer and the Director of X-Ray Laboratory.

The X-Ray Laboratory is located in 1707 Gilman Hall, and is both a service and user facility. Samples can be submitted for data collection and full X-Ray Structure Analysis, including "ready-for-publication" reports. After supervised training, advanced customers may be authorized to use the lab equipment to collect their own data.

The primary users of the laboratory are from the departments of Chemistry, Material Sciences  and Chemical Engineering.
 

Please contact Dr. Arkady Ellern,  ellern@iastate.edu for information and training. Phone: 515-294-7956.  

***NOTE*** X-Ray Safety Authorizations expire Feb 28 of each year.  You MUST renew in January or February of EACH year.****

Available Instrumentation - (Video Description)

  • Single Crystal Diffractometer: Bruker-AXS Venture D8 equipped with state-of-the-art  Photon detector ,  Mo-microsource tube and low temperature device. Available for customer use or sample submission. The diffractometer is PC controlled (Windows10) using Bruker AXS APEX3 Software Suite.  This diffractometer should be used for majority of application including heavy atoms structures, high resolution experiments, fast data collection for extremely unstable samples. The instrument is configured to be used  remotely for the ACIDE Outreach Project.
  • Single Crystal Diffractometer: Bruker-AXS APEXII equipped with  Charge-Coupled-Device (CCD) АПЕХ2 Detector, powerful Cu-microsource tube and low temperature device. Available for customer use or sample submission. The diffractometer is PC controlled (Windows 7) using Bruker AXS APEX3 Software Suite.  This diffractometer should be used for extremely small and weakly difracted crystals, light atoms compounds including their absolute configuration determination. The instrument is configured to be used  remotely for the ACIDE Outreach Project.
  • Powder Diffractometer: Rigaku Ultima IV, represents the modern multipurpose X-ray diffraction (XRD) systems. Incorporating Rigaku's patented cross beam optics (CBO) technology for permanently mounted, permanently aligned and user-selectable parallel and focusing geometries, the Ultima IV X-ray diffractometer can perform many different measurements...fast. This diffractometer can be set up for SAXS and Thin Film measurements. 
  • Leica Polarization Microscope equipped with Instec hot-stage and digital imaging processing system; allows optical study of crystals at different temperatures ( -170 till +350 C).
  • ZEISS Axioskop 40 Microscope.  Equiped with cold light and computerized video camera controlled by PC.
  • Computing Resources allow authorized users to collect and procees their own data using  a variety of networked PC's with different software packages installed.