Crystal Structure Analysis
MIT OpenCourseWare offers this advanced chemistry course on X-ray diffraction and crystallography. Topics include symmetry and space groups, the geometry of diffraction, structure factors, and the phase problem, along with direct methods and Patterson methods for solving structures. The course covers building electron density maps, refining structures against data, and practical guidance on growing crystals suitable for analysis. Powder diffraction methods and the limits of X-ray techniques round out the syllabus, along with the use of structure databases for comparison and validation. Materials follow MIT's OpenCourseWare format of lecture notes and problem sets under a Creative Commons license, with no cost to access. The course suits students who already have a background in chemistry or materials science and want the technical detail behind determining atomic structure from diffraction data.