• Question: what happens when you freeze crystals and what does that look like ?

    Asked by anon-185148 to Alice on 3 Nov 2018. This question was also asked by anon-184917, anon-184934, anon-184933, anon-184936.
    • Photo: Alice Loasby

      Alice Loasby answered on 3 Nov 2018:

      That’s a fantastic question! We freeze our crystals in tiny loops. These are attached to a pin, which fit to a magnetic holder. We pick them up from tiny drops, and freeze them in liquid nitrogen into a puck (and yes it does look like a hockey puck a bit!) which holds 16 pins. Then that puck is put in a holder and transported to the beam line at diamond light source where we shoot them. There a robot can then pick the pins out of the pucks and attaches them to a goniometer, which allows us to rotate them in the beam. If you are really interested in what the set up looks like, have a look at the Diamond website:
      https://www.diamond.ac.uk/Instruments/Mx/I24.html

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