The Imperatives in Atomic Structure Analyses: Lessons from Three- Dimensional Diffraction Gratings, Specular Reflection and Quasi- Crystals

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The Imperatives in Atomic Structure Analyses: Lessons from Three- Dimensional Diffraction Gratings, Specular Reflection and Quasi- Crystals

Journal Title: Journal of Thermodynamics & Catalysis - Year 2017, Vol 8, Issue 1

Abstract

The Nobel winning discovery of ‘Laue spots’ in 1912 is one of the pivotal breakthroughs in history [10]; to this day, over a century later its implications continue to reverberate through the sciences. In 1925 Alver Gullstrand, Chairman of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences would declare [11], “ This epoch-making discovery [Laue spots], which not only bore upon the nature of X-radiation and the reality of the space lattice assumed in crystallography, but also placed a new means of research into the hands of Science …”. Paradoxically, although Max Laue anticipated the ‘Laue effect’, but his new 3-dimensional vector diffraction theory had some serious flaws [12]. As a matter of fact, this theory shockingly misinterpreted the observed patterns. Nevertheless out of Max Laue’s fecund but imperfect analogy of three-dimensional diffraction gratings, wave scattering has emerged as a blockbuster success in a wide range of technologies including low energy electron diffraction (LEED), x-ray crystallography (XRD), and x-ray fluorescence (XRF). Techniques helped reveal the geometric structures of the simplest salts as well as the complex double helix spirals of the two strands of polynucleotides in life’s genetic code, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), netting dozens of Nobel Prizes in Physics, Chemistry and medicine. A surprise came in the early 1980’s with Dan Shechtman’s perplexing discovery [3,4] of spot patterns that disturbed the certitude of classical crystallography. This quasi-crystal puzzle would force the International Union the International Union of Crystallography to a redefinition of crystals in 1991 [13]. And in 2011 Shechtman would be honored with the Nobel Prize for chemistry. Here we query where Laue’s mathematics slipped and where Bragg’s formula really and exactly fits into classical crystallography. Especially re-examine the legacy of Miller indices and the dual space and prompt an improved approach that accommodates current trends and future needs of structure analysis; particularly the concerns of imperfect order, realspace configuration, microscopic specimen size, and extremely short exposures to high intensity beams [1,2,14].

Authors and Affiliations

Datta T T

Keywords

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EP ID EP356019
DOI 10.4172/2157-7544.1000e135
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