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Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference: GR/R75250/01
Title: Z'>1 structures: Just a nuisance, or something more interesting?
Principal Investigator: Watkin, Dr DJ
Other Investigators:
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Dr P Main
Project Partners:
Department: Oxford Chemistry
Organisation: University of Oxford
Scheme: Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts: 01 June 2002 Ends: 31 January 2006 Value (£): 216,078
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Chemical Structure
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology No relevance to Underpinning Sectors
Related Grants:
Panel History:  
Summary on Grant Application Form
There is a weird class of crystalline material in which the symmetry of the structure approaches to but does not quite achieve full Space Group symmetry (the psecdo-symmetric Z>1 crystals). Though these materials are scarcely known about outside of crystallography laboratories, they are being found with increasing frequency, probably as a direct result of the wide-spread use of the new generation of CCD single crystal diffractometers. Currently they are regarded as an unfortunate nuisance for the structure analyst, since there are no well-defined protocols for their treatment. The solution and refinement of these materials is characterised by a dual structure - the'average' structure (which is usually all that interest synthetic chemists) and the 'difference structure. Analyses of this kind of material is often abandoned once the 'average' structure has been determined. There is evidence that many of these analyses fail to reach publishable conclusions, so that the literature on these materials is unbalanced and incomplete. This proposal seeks funding to try to expand the literature by providing tools to assist with analyses, by showing that conventional validation procedures are inappropriate, and by throwing light on the nature of the materials.There are no known uses for these materials, but their stability, their association with phase changes and their frequent occurance at the centrosymmetriclnon-centrosymmetric interface may be pointers to future applications.
Key Findings
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Potential use in non-academic contexts
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Impacts
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Summary
Date Materialised
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Further Information:  
Organisation Website: http://www.ox.ac.uk