New electron diffraction method to identify the chirality of enantiomorphic crystals.

A new CBED (convergent-beam electron diffraction) method is proposed for the identification of the chirality of enantiomorphic crystals, in which asymmetry in the intensity of the reflections of Bijvoet pairs in an experimental symmetrical zone-axis CBED pattern is compared with that of a computer-simulated CBED pattern. The intensity difference for reflections of these Bijvoet pairs results from multiple scattering (dynamical nature of electron diffraction) among relevant Bijvoet pairs of reflections, each pair of which has identical amplitude and different phase angles. Therefore, the crystal thickness where chiral identification is made with the present method is limited by the extinction distance of Bijvoet pairs of reflections relevant to multiple scattering to produce the intensity asymmetry, which is usually of the order of a few tens of nanometers. With the present method, a single CBED pattern is sufficient and chiral identification can be made for all the possible enantiomorphic crystals that are allowed to exist in crystallography.