What Is Crystallography?
To put it simply, crystallography is the study of crystalline solids to understand the atom arrangement, polymorphism and structural similarity, and predict crystal structure of gemstones, salts, snowflakes etc. Or at least, the field of expertise began to study such materials, as the field has extended its learning and understanding of atom arrangement to studying diverse substances as living cells to protein molecules.
What Makes It Different From Other Science Branches?
It is a thrilling field that combines the workings and research of chemistry, physics, molecular biology, ceramics engineering, materials science and earth sciences - a package indeed! While it may seem like a niche field, over past years, it has contributed 28 Nobel Peace prizes in the research and findings of detailed understanding in materials, synthetic chemistry, and advances in the development of numerous drugs to combat diseases, investigate genetics, and much more contributions to come.
In order to analyze the structure of any substance, crystallographers use mainly x-rays to establish patent claims, but over the years powder crystallography has been a popular method among forensics laboratories and other laboratories to investigate the properties and components of mixtures and crystallized solids. The use of instruments in their practice goes beyond these two methods as crystallographers may experiment with a wide range of instruments such as atomic force microscopy, electron crystallography, high-pressure diffraction, neutron diffraction, molecular modeling, and even microgravity experiments in space!
Example of how X-ray crystallography works:
Example of how powder crystallography vs x-ray crystallography works:
Process of using Electron Crystallography:
Atomic force microscopy:
Daily Tasks:
Some of the daily tasks/skills a crystallographer is expected to do are as follows:
Have the responsibility of maintaining, operating and repairing their instruments accordingly
Depending on the educational qualifications a candidate may have, typically graduates with a Master’s or Ph.D. in their respective field may contribute research in industrial, nonprofit institution, government, or academic laboratories
May be expected to maintain archival databases at national/governmental level
Understand data analysis software and develop computer models for data collection and analysis
Prepare and catalogue sample, and data collections
May need to be able to translate and visualize data from their software to crystal structure models
May be expected to investigate cases involving product alterations or counterfeiting at forensics labs
Grow crystals for research purposes
Provide customer support as a sales or service representative of an instrument manufacturer
May train others on proper data collection and software packages
Ensure safety precautions and perform routine check-ups
Travel to conferences or to specialized facilities to use their instruments
Stoichiometry + Crystallography → Science!
To quickly clarify what stoichiometry is, by a simple definition, it is a way to determine quantitative data within a balanced chemical equation from the quantitative relationship of the chemical reactants and products using natural numbers. With the multiple chemical reactions that happen in the field of crystallography, it is expected that stoichiometry is used a lot.
In fact, recently there has been some research to suggest that stoichiometry could be the beneficial component to making adjustments and changes to the equilibrium self-assembly of binary mixtures of DNA-functionalized particles.
Yet, some sources criticized that “It is especially unclear if changing stoichiometry alone can be used to direct assembly into different structures in the same way as changing pairwise interactions since this requires knowledge of the phase diagram for each system of interest," (a statement commented by Pritti. E, Shen. V, Mittal. J and Mahnsyki. N in May 2019, working on an article “Using symmetry to elucidate the importance of stoichiometry in colloidal crystal assembly” ). However, they have argued both sides and have expressed their excitement to learn that stoichiometric control can predict the structure of self-assembling, multicomponent colloidal mixtures and used to rationally control the symmetry of crystalline solids.
Works Cited:
Cruz‐Cabeza, Aurora J., et al. “Towards Prediction of Stoichiometry in Crystalline Multicomponent
Complexes.” Chemistry Europe, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 27 Aug. 2008, chemistry-
europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/chem.200800668.
“Crystallography.” American Chemical Society, www.acs.org/content/acs/en/careers/college-to-
career/chemistry-careers/cystallography.html.
Mahynski, Nathan A., et al. “Using Symmetry to Elucidate the Importance of Stoichiometry in Colloidal
Crystal Assembly.” Nature News, Nature Publishing Group, 2 May 2019,
www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10031-4.
Stevens, Kristin. Careers In Crystallography, www.amercrystalassn.org/careers-in-crystallography.
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