Scattering techniques can give you information on atomic or molecular scale structure. When your sample is illuminated by X-rays it causes deflections. By analysing the produced patterns, the structure of your material can be determined.
Structure determination using X-ray crystallography is often used in drug discovery to proteins and their active sites at atomic resolution. For soft matter, small-angle scattering is an ideal technique to study structures in the nanometre to micrometre range and get information on the inner structure of disordered or partially ordered materials that are difficult to crystallise. It can also be used to observe protein structure in dynamics and solution, and to determine the averaged particle size, shape, and distribution, as well as surface-to-volume ratio.
Scattering techniques offered at MAX IV:
| X-ray Diffraction | Fragment Screening | Macromolecular Crystallography (MX) |
| Small-Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS) | Protein SAXS (BioSAXS) | X-Ray Photon Correlation Spectroscopy (XPCS) |
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X-ray Diffraction
Used for structure characterisation of materials, such as phase identification from surfaces or of crystalline materials, or structural characterisation of catalysts under in situ conditions.
Offered at: NanoMAX, ForMAX, DanMAX, Balder
[Links to the corresponding main beamline pages]
Fragment Screening
A powerful technique frequently used within drug discovery to screen fragment libraries for specific binding to a biological target, such as probing the functional sites of target proteins or to find starting points for development of novel pharmaceutical substances.
Offered at beamlines: Biomax
[Links to the corresponding main beamline pages]
Macromolecular Crystallography (MX)
Used for determining the atomic, three-dimensional structures of large biological molecules and understand the structure-function relationship.
Offered at beamlines: MicroMAX, BioMAX
[Links to the corresponding main beamline pages]
Small-Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS)
Suitable for investigate the structure of partially ordered materials and systems that may be complex or difficult to crystallise. X-rays allow experiments at a wider range of length scales and at faster measurement times than possible with lab-based instruments.
Offered at beamlines: ForMAX, CoSAXS
[Links to the corresponding main beamline pages]
Potein SAXS (BioSAXS)
Small Angle X-ray Scattering used for obtaining information on the shape and size and of biological macromolecules in solution, for example the molecular weight of a protein complex.
Offered at beamlines: CoSAXS
[Links to the corresponding main beamline pages]
X-Ray Photon Correlation Spectroscopy (XPCS)
Used for measuring the dynamics of a sample, such as diffusion, relaxation, reorganisation, and other timescale processes, and the slow dynamics of processes in condensed matter systems.
Offered at beamlines: CoSAXS
[Links to the corresponding main beamline pages]
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