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

SGER：无晶体的晶体学：嵌入超流氦液滴中的激光排列分子的电子衍射

• 批准号: 0827182
• 负责人: Wei Kong
• 金额: $ 19.83万
• 依托单位: Oregon State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-08-15 至 2011-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0827182&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SGER; Crystallography; without; crystals; Electron

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.

在这项由实验物理化学计划资助的SGER奖中，俄勒冈州立大学的孔卫教授和她的博士后和研究生同事将进行探索性研究，试图对超流氦液滴中的分子和团簇进行分子结构测定。Pi和她的团队将使用聚焦的激光辐射来对准分子目标，并结合电子衍射来确定结构。最初的研究对象是酞菁化合物。孔和她的团队正在尝试开发方法来快速确定不适用于其他方法的物种的分子结构。大多数结构测定是通过X射线衍射研究完成的，这需要高质量的晶体才能获得良好的结果。并不是所有的分子(例如某些蛋白质)都容易形成晶体，因此很难用传统的X射线衍射法进行研究。孔的工作可能会导致一种更通用的方法，使用单分子来高通量确定分子结构。