Open Access Publication of the Month – Tatiana Gorelik (ER-C-1) et al.
4 March 2025
To encourage us all to broaden our horizons, each month the Central Library selects one open access publication from the JuSER publications portal to be featured in the newsletter of Forschungszentrum Jülich.
In this month’s open access publication, Tatiana Gorelik (ER-C-1) et al. write about determining the unit cell parameters of crystals from a set of independent electron diffraction patterns.
Crystal structure determination is essential for understanding material properties, but is challenging for submicron crystals. Serial X-ray crystallography addresses this challenge by collecting and merging thousands or millions of diffraction snapshots from small crystals. Initially developed for X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs), the technique has since been adapted for synchrotron sources and is primarily used for protein structures. A similar approach can be applied for a transmission electron microscope (TEM), where an electron beam scans the sample in diffraction mode, recording numerous electron diffraction patterns. TEM-based serial crystallography is more accessible and cost-effective than synchrotron experiments, but data processing remains challenging due to the short wavelength of electrons. Each diffraction pattern represents a nearly planar section of reciprocal space, making it difficult to determine unit cell parameters.
A crystallographic algorithm for determining unit cell parameters from independently oriented electron diffraction patterns was originally developed in the 1970s. Initially a mathematical experiment, the algorithm has gained new relevance with advances in serial electron crystallography. Here, the authors describe the algorithm and demonstrate its effectiveness on modern electron diffraction data. They are able to successfully determine unit cell metrics even for small protein (lysozyme) crystals, highlighting the potential to use the algorithm in serial electron crystallography data processing workflows.
The open access publication entitled “Unit cell parameters determination from a set of independent electron diffraction zonal patterns” was published in Acta Crystallographica Section A: Foundations and Advances.
JuSER publications portal – Unit cell parameters determination from a set of independent electron diffraction zonal Patterns
Forschungszentrum Jülich – Central Library (ZB) – Open Access