Crystallography

Crystallography is the branch of science devoted to the study of molecular and crystalline structure and properties.^[1] The word crystallography is derived from the Ancient Greek word κρύσταλλος (krústallos; "clear ice, rock-crystal"), and γράφειν (gráphein; "to write").^[2] In July 2012, the United Nations recognised the importance of the science of crystallography by proclaiming 2014 the International Year of Crystallography.^[3]

Crystallography is a broad topic, and there are many subareas such as X-ray crystallography which are themselves large scientific topics. It spans science ranging from the fundamentals of crystal structure to the mathematics of crystal geometry including those which are not periodic or quasicrystals. At the atomic scale it can involve the use of X-ray diffraction to produce experimental data which the tools of X-ray crystallography can convert into detailed positions of atoms and sometimes electron density. At the larger scale it includes experimental tools such as orientational imaging to examine the relative orientations at the grain boundary in materials. Crystallography plays a key role in many areas of established biology, chemistry and physics as well new developments in these fields.