12.05.2014

International Summer School of Crystallography

Training week at CFEL for students from 24 nations

This week, the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (CFEL) hosts 38 students attending the first International Summer School of Crystallography. The participants of 24 different nationalities will learn the basics of crystallography, one of the most important tools to explore the inner structure of materials. CFEL is a joint enterprise from DESY, the University of Hamburg and the Max Planck Society.

An intensive week of training: The participants of the ISSC 14.

“Ranging from rock layers and materials science to the investigation of proteins or medications – crystallography is extremely prevalent” said summer school organiser Cornelius Gati from the group of Professor Henry Chapman at CFEL. “Crystallography has a tremendous impact on our everyday life; however, the awareness of the general public of this technology is hardly noticeable. This is why the UNESCO declared 2014 as the International Year of Crystallography.”

Today, the most common crystallographic method is X-ray crystallography in which crystalline materials are irradiated with an X-ray beam. The resulting diffraction images are used to calculate the atomic structure by means of mathematical formulas. “This principle resembles a ‘mathematical magnifying glass’” said Gati. “However, in the age of computers, it becomes more and more difficult to understand what the programmes that we use as scientists actually do.” For this reason, the summer school as part of the International Year of Crystallography will go into the mathematical background of these techniques. This will give the participants an idea of what the tools of crystallography, such as computer programmes which are used  thousands of times every day, really do.

“I am very pleased that we could win a distinguished expert in the field of crystallography, Professor Carmelo Giacovazzo from the University of Bari, as a speaker. For one week he will guide us through the theory and history of crystallography” said Gati. Financial and organizational support comes from the PIER Helmholtz Graduate School of DESY and the University of Hamburg, the Hamburg Center for Ultrafast Imaging (CUI), CFEL, the International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) for Ultrafast Imaging and Structural Dynamics, the European XFEL GmbH and DESY.

International Summer School of Crystallography: http://conferences.cfel.de/issc14
International Year of Crystallography: http://www.iycr2014.org/