Structures of nanometre-size crystals determined from selected-area electron diffraction data

The structure of a new modification of Ti,Se, the B-phase, and several related inorganic crystal structures containing elements with atomic numbers between 16 and 40 have been solved by quasi-automatic direct methods from single-crystal electron diffraction patterns of nanometre-size crystals, using the kinematical aproximation. The crystals were several thousand times smaller than the minimum size required for single-crystal X-ray diffraction. Atomic coordinates were found with an average accuracy of 0.21 Angstrom or better. Experimental data were obtained by standardized techniques for recording and quantifying electron diffraction patterns. The SIR97 program for solving crystal structures from three-dimensional X-ray diffraction data by direct methods was modified to work also with two-dimensional electron diffraction data.