Question: What are some of the most interesting experiments you've using X-Ray Crystallography?

Ian Cade answered on 11 Nov 2014:

In practice all X-ray crystallography experiments involve the same sort of set up (get small crystal, cool down in a stream of nitrogen at 100-150K, place in an X-ray beam, record the intensity and positions of the diffracted beams of X-rays).

But, some particular ones that stand out in my:

One crystal that had five molecules of solvent for every one molecule of ruthenium complex – this meant that I had to be especially quick getting the crystal into the machine before the solvent evaporated out of the structure and the crystal cracked.

Another set of crystals that were quite flexible and temperature sensitive (if they were cooled down too much or too quickly they coiled up like springs and then cracked) this was also a problem with the ruthenium case above.

And one I should be doing now… the calculated structure suggests that one of my new compounds should have an unusual distortion. This is hinted at by the fact the compound is not the same colour as other similar compounds… and if I can grow some good crystals and get an X-ray structure I should be able to confirm this distortion.