Refining structures against reflection rank: An alternative metric for electron crystallography

Alexander S. Eggeman, Paul A. Midgley*

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    A new metric is proposed to improve the fidelity of structures refined against precession electron diffraction data. The inherent dynamical nature of electron diffraction ensures that direct refinement of recorded intensities against structure-factor amplitudes can be prone to systematic errors. Here it is shown that the relative intensity of precessed reflections, their rank, can be used as an alternative metric for refinement. Experimental data from erbium pyrogermanate show that applying precession reduces the dynamical transfer of intensity between reflections and hence stabilizes their rank, enabling accurate and reliable structural refinements. This approach is then applied successfully to an unknown structure of an oxygen-deficient bismuth manganite resulting in a refined structural model that is similar to a calcium analogue.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)352-358
    Number of pages7
    JournalActa Crystallographica Section A: Foundations of Crystallography
    Volume68
    Issue number3
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - May 2012

    Keywords

    • precession electron diffraction
    • structure refinement

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