Crystallography Central Facility















Updated Jan-28-2008
by Chunhua Hu

About Facility

The NCMN operates and coordinates seven Central Service Facilities that are open to all UNL researchers as well as external researchers. The Central Facility for Crystallography is one of these facilities. The Crystallography Facility has a faculty supervisor (Dr. David Sellmyer) and its operation, maintenance and technical support are provided by the facility's specialist, Dr. Chunhua Hu.

The facility is dedicated to materials identification and characterization through single crystal X-Ray diffraction (SCD) analysis. Researchers may have analyses done by the facility specialist or become a trained user of facility instrumentation and perform the work themselves (certain restrictions may apply to external users).

What can we do?

1) For single crystal sample
  • Crystal structure determination
  • Unit cell determination/Phase identification
  • Crystal morphology determination
2) For powder sample
  • Phase identification
3) With LT attachment
  • In situ measurement from 90K to 400K
  • In situ crystallization for compounds with low melting point
  • Phase transition
4) With HT attachment
  • In situ measurement from 300K to 600K
  • In situ crystallization by melting
  • Phase transition
5) Structure search through databases 6) Crystal growth
  • Consulation for crystal growth techniques
  • Hands-on training for crystal growth techniques
  • Crystal growth service

Instrumentation

Bruker AXS D8 Discover with SMART Apex (4K) CCD area detector

Oxford Cryosystems 700 series Cryostream

Meiji stereo zoom microscope with polarizer attachment

Software

Bruker AXS: SMART, SAINT, SADABS, SHELXTL and XSHELL

CCDC (The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre): CSD (Cambridge Structural Database), EnCIFer, Mercury

PLATON

DIAMOND - The Facility hold the Campus Licence (University of Nebraska).

WinGX

Webpage

1) The facility webpage is located in the server computer of the Department of Chemistry of UNL, which is created, designed and maintained by the Facility Specialist, Dr. Chunhua Hu (Tony).
2) The crystal picture at the left side of the page was taken by Chunhua Hu during his work at RWTH Aachen, Germany. The crystal was grown from the aqueous solution of KDP, Potassium (K) Dihydrogen Phosphate, by slow evaporation. KDP is a very important optical material, which may be grown in a half-ton size in a couple of weeks. Have a look at here: 1), 2).
3) The rotating molecule at the right side is generously provided by Jonathan Skean from the previous facility webpage.