Programme

The School is an intensive completely hands-on introductory course from crystal growth to manuscript preparation with a strong emphasis on practical aspects in addition to teaching the essential theory.

Typical daily timetable (slight variations may occur on specific days)

08:30 - 10:30 lectures
10:30 - 11:00 coffee break
11:00 - 13:00 practical work
13:00 - 14:20 lunch break
14:20 - 16:20 lectures
16:20 - 16:45 coffee break
16:45 - 18:45 practical work
18:45 - 19:00 group discussion between tutors & students
19:30 dinner, relaxation and lively discussions

Detailed Programme

Full details of the programme for each day will be available closer to the school.  The following topics will be covered:

Theory
            - What is crystallography; what can it tell us?
            - Crystals and electromagnetic radiation
            - Basic principles of interference and diffraction
            - Fourier transforms and convolution
            - Crystal growth
            - Unit cells, Bravais lattices
            - Direct and reciprocal lattices, Bragg's Law
            - Miller indices, Ewald sphere
            - Symmetry, point groups, Laue symmetry
            - Space groups, equivalent positions, Z
            - Intensity statistics, E-values
            - Systematic extinctions
            - Determination of space groups
            - Structure factors, intensity vs. e-density
            - The phase problem
            - Methods of structure solution
            - Structure refinement
            - Strategies for dealing with difficult structures
            - Absolute structure determination
            - Introduction to disorder and twinning
            - Inorganic structures
            - CIF
            - Validation of results
            - Derivation, analysis, interpretation and presentation
              of the numerical, structural and chemical results
            - Accuracy & precision, random & systematic errors, statistical treatments
            - Searching the crystallographic databases

Practical
            - Instrumentation; working safely with X-rays
            - Crystal selection and mounting
            - Data collection
            - Data integration, reduction, Lp and absorption corrections
            - Space group determination, unit cell transformations
            - Structure solution
            - Structure modelling and refinement using set examples showing
              routine and more challenging cases
            - Solving and refining the participant's own structure
            - Exposure to commonly used software and interpretation of program output