Diffractometer for charged-particle crystallography

Abstract

The present invention relates to a diffractometer (1) for charged-particle crystallography of a crystalline sample (31), in particular for electron crystallography of a crystalline sample (31). The diffractometer (1) comprises a charged-particle source (10) for generating a charged-particle beam along a charged-particle beam axis (11), a charged-particle-optical system (20) for manipulating the charged-particle beam such as to irradiate the sample with the charged-particle beam and a charged-particle detection system (50) at least for collecting a diffraction pattern of the sample (31) based on the beam of charged- particles transmitted through the sample. The diffractometer (1) further comprises a sample holder (30) for holding the sample and a manipulator (40) operatively coupled to the sample holder (30) for positioning the sample (31) relative to the beam axis (11). The manipulator (40) comprises a rotation stage (41) for tilting the sample holder (30) with respect to the incident charged-particle beam around a tilt axis (44), and a multi-axes translation stage (42) for moving the sample holder (30) at least in a plane perpendicular to the tilt axis (44). The multi-axes translation stage (42) is operatively coupled between the sample holder (30) and the rotation stage (41) such that the multi-axes translation stage (42) is in a rotational system of the rotation stage (41) and the sample holder (30) is in a moving system of the multi-axes translation stage (42).

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates to a diffractometer for charged particle crystallography of crystallized samples, in particular for electron crystallography of crystallized samples. Background technique [0002] Crystallography is a fundamental technique in most fields of chemistry, especially for structure determination of crystalline samples. For decades, X-ray diffraction analysis has been the main technique used for structure determination. However, X-ray diffraction analysis requires large and well-ordered crystals to withstand the negative effects of radiation damage during irradiation and data collection. For the analysis of smaller samples, especially those that are difficult to grow to a sufficiently large size, the use of charged particles, such as electrons, for structure determination has been proposed. In contrast to X-ray diffraction, charged particle diffraction imposes little lower size limit on crystals. For example, the use of accele...

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However, this procedure can be laborious and time-consuming, if at all possible

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