XFELs make small molecule crystallography without crystals possible

A new x-ray crystallography technique can better elucidate the structures of the many materials that don’t form tidy, single crystals. The method developed by a large, multi-institutional research collaboration could help investigate the structures of compounds such as solar absorbers and metal–organic frameworks.

The new technique, dubbed small molecule serial femtosecond x-ray crystallography (smSFX), brings to bear much more powerful, focused and higher-speed x-ray beams than other x-ray sources for crystallography. It only takes a few quadrillionths of a second to complete the entire process, from x-ray pulse to diffraction image.