REAL-TIME ELECTRON-DIFFRACTION .3. IMAGE TRANSFER VIA FIBER OPTICS

Improvements are described in photodiode-array real-time data recording for gas electron diffraction (GED). When the conventional glass window and lens optics in a previously reported detector configuration are replaced by fiber optic components, two significant effects arise: (1) detector gain is enhanced to the extent that it is now possible to detect nanoliter samples in combined GED-GC (gas chromatography) experiments, and (2) for the first time since the development of the real-time recording scheme, molecular mean amplitudes of vibration are within error limits of literature values. Thus the method now affords full molecular structure determinations, including bond distances and angles, and their associated mean vibrational properties.