Many ABX3 perovskite compounds adopt at temperatures of interest a low-symmetry structure, rather than the ideal (cubic) structure. The prototypical case is the mineral perovskite (CaTiO3), which exhibits orthorhombic symmetry...
In order to utilize the high repetition rates now available at X-ray free-electron laser sources for serial crystallography, methods must be developed to softly deliver large numbers of individual microcrystals at high repetition rates and high speeds. Picosecond infrared laser (PIRL) pulses, operating under desorption by impulsive vibrational excitation (DIVE) conditions, selectively excite the OH vibrational stretch of water to directly propel the excited volume at high speed with minimized heating effects, nucleation formation or cavitationinduced shock waves, leaving the analytes intact and undamaged. The soft nature and laser-based sampling flexibility provided by the technique make the PIRL system an interesting crystal delivery approach for serial crystallography. This paper demonstrates that protein crystals extracted directly from aqueous buffer solution via PIRL-DIVE ablation retain their diffractive properties and can be usefully exploited for structure determination at synchrotron sources. The remaining steps to implement the technology for high-speed serial femtosecond crystallography, such as single-crystal localization, high-speed sampling and synchronization, are described. This proof-of-principle experiment demonstrates the viability of a new laser-based high-speed crystal delivery system without the need for liquid-jet injectors or fixed-target mounting solutions
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.