Group Photo

Scientific Report

1. General Summary

The participants of the course consisted of 57 Ph.D. students and young postdocs, and 19 lecturers and workshop leaders. The course provided lectures on the basics of electron crystallography as well as insight into the most recent developments in this field, stretching from electron diffraction to imaging for crystallographic purposes, on a wide range of materials, from proteins to inorganic materials. This was done by organizing (on average) lectures in the morning and hands-on workshops in the afternoons. Each workshop was given twice, such that, as many participants worked on their own laptops, everyone was able to attend each workshop topic.

The first day was devoted to the basics of diffraction and crystallography, to make sure all necessary background knowledge for the more advanced lectures was front-and-centre in the participants’ minds. Thereafter, the successful and upcoming techniques of quantitative electron diffraction analysis for structure determination and refinement were discussed, from sample preparation and data acquisition up to the final refinement procedures. Most lectures were coupled with effective hands-on sessions. In the second half of the course, attention was also given to imaging and spectroscopic techniques as specifically used for crystallographic purposes.

The participants themselves were encouraged to show their recent work during the poster sessions. There were two poster sessions in the evenings, exhibiting half of the posters in each session, with a chance to preview the poster during lunchtime. Many discussions were held at the poster during both the “official” poster sessions and the preview sessions. The three best posters were selected by a small committee and the creators of those posters were presented with a certificate at the end of the course. Networking was supported by several organized social events.

Further opportunities for the Ph.D. students to learn general skills were provided by asking student volunteers to function as chairpersons for the sessions and encouraging them to prepare questions and open remarks for the round-table discussion on the “Future of Electron Crystallography” (held as last event of the course). In this round table session on the future, several directions were put forward as necessary for future advancement, such as further the need for decreasing beam damage, and related to this, further progress in detectors, sample preparation methods and automation to make the techniques available for a wider users audience.