Welcome to the Department of Chemistry Crystallography Service Center
The Lab: This service center is part of the Virginia Tech Crystallography Lab (VTX), operated jointly by the Departments of Chemistry, GeoSciences, and Biology in the College of Sciences. VTX houses the latest technology in single crystal diffraction instrumentation for small molecule and protein crystallography, including both Mo and Cu sources.
Services Offered: The following small molecule crystallography services are offered to members of the Virginia Tech community, regional institutions, and industrial clients. If you are new to this facility, please contact Carla Slebodnick for more information.
- Screening single crystals for suitability for data collection (walk-in screening available on-campus Mondays 9:30 -10:30 AM in HHN306D OR screening is available at the CRC by appointment).
- Collecting X-ray intensity data from the crystals (if they are suitable)
- Solving and refining the structure.
- Providing a structure report and figures.
- Proof reading the crystallography section of any papers that include a structure collected in this facility.
Services NOT Offered through the Chemistry Department Service Center:
- Powder XRD: The crystallography lab does not offer powder diffraction services. This includes WAXS and SAXS on thin films as well as phase identification of powders. Although there are multiple departments on campus with powder diffractometers, to the best of our knowledge they do not offer this as a service. So, please do NOT contact us with questions about where to obtain powder diffraction data.
- Protein Crystallography: Although not part of the Chemistry Service Center, the crystallography lab does have an in-house facility suitable for screening proteins prior to synchrotron data collection; for good-quality crystals we can collect entire datasets in-house. Please contact Carla Slebodnick for more information.