Announcement

The Department of Chemistry at Vassar College has recently installed a state-of-the-art single crystal X-ray diffractometer for chemical crystallography. Funding for the instrument was obtained through a National Science Foundations Major Research Instrumentation proposal, "Acquisition of a CCD X-ray Diffractometer for Chemical Research and Education,” NSF-0521237.

X-ray crystallography is a powerful technique for determining the molecular structure of materials, or the actual arrangement of atoms in molecules.  X-ray diffraction techniques have enabled some of the most seminal discoveries in science, including the discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA and the elucidation of the structures of penicillin and hemoglobin.

The SMART APEX II platform diffractometer from Bruker Advanced X-ray Solutions is equipped with a MonoCap X-ray waveguide that increases the collimated X-ray intensity by a factor of 2.5, an APEX II charge-couple device (CCD) detector with ten-fold better sensitivity than first generation CCDs and an Oxford liquid nitrogen cryostream. These features make the instrument useful for a large variety of samples, including tiny, weakly diffracting and air-sensitive materials.

Science faculty members in the Hudson Valley who are interested in using the new instrument to obtain X-ray crystal structures in support of their research should contact Professor Joe Tanski (845-437-7503, jotanski@vassar.edu) for more information.