The Microcapillary Protein Crystallization System (MPCS) embodies a new semi-automated plug-based crystallization technology which enables nanolitre-volume screening of crystallization conditions in a plasticware format that allows crystals to be easily removed for traditional cryoprotection and X-ray diffraction data collection. Protein crystals grown in these plastic devices can be directly s...

Acta Crystallographica Section A: Foundations and Advances publishes articles reporting fundamental advances in all areas of crystallography in the broadest sense. This includes metacrystals such as photonic or phononic crystals, i.e. structures on the mesoor macroscale that can be studied with crystallographic methods. The central themes are, on the one hand, experimental and theoretical studi...

Polycrystalline MFI zeolite membranes were prepared on α-alumina tubular support by hydrothermal treatments at 413 K. The synthesized zeolite membranes were characterized by XRD, SEM and single gas permeation. The influence of hydrothermal treatment steps and the calcination time on the zeolite layer formation were investigated. MFI zeolite membrane prepared by four subsequent hydrothermal ...

We report that an electron beam focused for high resolution imaging rapidly initiates observable crystallization of amorphous Me-Si-C films. For 200-keV electron irradiation of Nb-Si-C and Zr-Si-C films, crystallization is observed at doses of ~2.8*10 and ~4.7*10 e /nm, respectively. The crystallization process is driven by atomic displacement events, rather than heating from the electron beam ...

Recent ex situ observations of crystallization in both natural and synthetic systems indicate that the classical models of nucleation and growth are inaccurate. However, in situ observations that can provide direct evidence for alternative models have been lacking due to the limited temporal and spatial resolution of experimental techniques that can observe dynamic processes in a bulk solution....

Stable TiO2 sols were prepared using two nonaqueous sol–gel processes with titanium n-butoxide and titanium isopropoxide, respectively. Crystallization and phase transitions of powders and thin films were studied by ex situ and in situ X-ray diffraction. For both methods, TiO2 began to crystallize around 320 C in air. Using helium instead of air during heat treatment slowed down the crystalliza...

The thermally-induced crystallization of anodically grown TiO₂ amorphous nanotubes has been studied so far under ambient pressure conditions by techniques such as differential scanning calorimetry and in situ X-ray diffraction, then looking at the overall response of several thousands of nanotubes in a carpet arrangement. Here we report a study of this phenomenon based on an in situ transmissio...

Microfluidics is a promising technology for the rapid identification of protein crystallization conditions. However, most of the existing systems utilize silicone elastomers as the chip material which, despite its many benefits, is highly permeable to water vapour. This limits the time available for protein crystallization to less than a week. Here, the use of a cyclic olefin homopolymer-based ...

Four amphiphilic peptides with designed hairpin structure were synthesized and their monolayers were employed as model systems to study biologically inspired calcium carbonate crystallization. Langmuir monolayers of hairpin peptides were investigated by surface pressure area isotherms, surface potential isotherms, Brewster angle microscopy (BAM), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and Fourier transf...