X-ray Single-Crystal Structural Analysis of a Magnetically Oriented Monoclinic Microcrystal Suspension of α-Glycine

• Main Authors: Tatsuya Tanaka, Chiaki Tsuboi, Kazuaki Aburaya, Fumiko Kimura, Masataka Maeyama, Tsunehisa Kimura
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2019-10-01
• Series: Crystals
• Subjects: magnetic orientation; three-dimensional orientation; α-glycine; single-crystal x-ray diffraction measurement; single-crystal structure analysis
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4352/9/11/561

We previously reported on a method for X-ray single-crystal structure determination from a powder sample via a magnetically oriented microcrystal suspension (MOMS). The method was successfully applied to orthorhombic microcrystals (L-alanine, P2₁2₁2₁). In this study, we apply this method to monoclinic microcrystals. Unlike most of the orthorhombic MOMSs, monoclinic MOMSs exhibit two or four orientations with the same magnetic energy (we refer to this as twin orientations), making data processing difficult. In this paper, we perform a MOMS experiment for a powder sample of monoclinic microcrystal (α-glycine, P2₁/n) to show that our method can also be applied to monoclinic crystals. The single-crystal structure determined in this work is in good agreement with the reported one performed on a real single crystal. Furthermore, the relationship between the crystallographic and magnetic susceptibility axes is determined.