X-ray Molecular Structure Lab
The 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 Scientist III, staff crystallographer and the Director of X-Ray Molecular Structure Laboratory.
Laboratory 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. CIF co-authorship policy can be found here.
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 e-mail Dr. Arkady Ellern or Phone/WhatsApp/Telegram: 515-450-6760 (mobile) for information and training.
Available Instrumentation - (Video Description)
- Single Crystal Diffractometer: Bruker-AXS Venture D8 equipped with state-of-the-art Photon III detector, Mo-microsource tube and low temperature device. Available for customer use or sample submission. The diffractometer is PC controlled (Windows10) using Bruker AXS APEX5 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) АPЕХ2 Detector, powerful Cu-microsource tube and low temperature device. Available for customer use or sample submission. The diffractometer is PC controlled (Windows 10) using Bruker AXS APEX4 Software Suite. This diffractometer should be used for extremely small and weakly diffracted crystals, light atoms compounds for their absolute configuration determination. The instrument is configured to be used remotely for the ACIDE Outreach Project.
- Powder Diffractometer: Rigaku Ultima IV, represents the 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 video camera, Instec hot-stage and digital imaging processing system; allows optical study of crystals at different temperatures ( -170 till +350 C).
- ZEISS Axioskop 40 Microscope. Equipped with cold light and computerized video camera controlled by PC.
- Computing Resources allow authorized users to collect and process their own data using a variety of networked PC's with different software packages installed.