SGER: Crystallography without crystals: Electron diffraction of laser aligned molecules embedded in superfluid helium droplets

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In this SGER award, funded by the Experimental Physical Chemistry Program, Prof. Wei Kong of Oregon State University and her postodoctoral and graduate student colleagues will conduct exploratory research to attempt to do molecular structure determination of molecules and clusters in superfluid helium droplets. The PI and her team will use focused laser radiation to align the molecular targets, combined with electron diffraction for structure determination. Initial targets for study are phthalocyanine compounds.Prof. Kong and her group are attempting to develop methods to rapidly determine molecular structure for species that are not amenable to other methods. Most structural determination is done through X-ray diffraction studies, which require high quality crystals to obtain good results. Not all molecules (e.g. some proteins) readily form crystals, and hence they are difficult to study with the traditional x-ray diffraction methods. Kong's work may lead to a more general method for high-throughput molecular structure determination, using single molecules.