Crystallography is an important scientific field that helps the development of other scientific fields such as physics, chemistry, biology and material sciences. The importance of crystallography grows over time with the development of more sophisticated and technically demanding studies, which are also accompanied by the development of crystallography itself on the theoretical, experimental and instrumental side. Despite the importance of crystallography and structural analysis in Slovak literature, no textbook dealing with crystallography or structural analysis has been written so far, with the exception of the outdated university scripts written by Pavelčík and Kuchta in 1995 [1]. The development of both crystallography and structural analysis forced their differentiation for the needs of other scientific fields. The development of chemistry also requires knowledge of crystallography and structural analysis, with claims to knowledge of growth from the development of chemistry. This is due to the need to write a textbook dedicated to crystallography oriented for students of chemistry and related fields, as well as workers in these fields. The aim of the textbook is to bring basic information about chemical crystallography as well as other specific information from crystallography and structural analysis interesting and important for chemists and chemistry.
The textbook is written in the Slovak language and corrected using the Slovak crystallographic dictionary [2]. The inspiration for writing the textbook in terms of content and scope was several modern textbooks written in English in the last edition [3-6] and supplemented with additional information from other sources and primary literature. The textbook is divided into 16 chapters and one additional chapter. The introductory chapter 1 of the textbook introduces the reader to the history of modern crystallography. The following chapter 2 will introduce the reader to basic concepts such as lattice, unit cell, crystallographic systems and others. The following chapter 3 is devoted to crystal symmetry, symmetry operations, crystallographic point groups and space groups. The chapter 4 is devoted to the geometric aspect of diffraction, introduces the concept of the reciprocal Lattice, deals with Laue diffraction conditions, the Bragg equation, and the Ewald construction. The following chapter 5 is devoted to X-ray diffraction, X-ray radiation, radiation scattering and diffraction theory. This is followed by chapter 6 dedicated to the structural factors. The chapter 7 introduces the reader to the issue of intensity diffraction.
The following chapters are devoted to solving the crystal structure. The chapter 8 is devoted to the solution of the phase problem by various methods and their implementation in the software. The following chapter 9 is devoted to the refinement of the structure, the geometric analysis of the structure, and the determination of the absolute structure by various methods. This is followed by the chapter 10, which is dedicated to finalizing the structure, validating the crystal structure, rendering the structure in imaging programs, archiving the crystal structure and the CIF file.
In the chapter 11, the reader will learn about problem structures such as disorders, twinning and modulated structures. The following chapter 14 is devoted to quantum crystallography: charge densities, the Kappa and Multipole models of refinement, Hirshfeld Atom Refinement and other methods of quantum crystallography, as well as topological analysis of charge densities.
The more extensive chapter 13 discusses the experimental technique in more detail, starting with the preparation, selection and montage of crystals. The next chapter deals with sources of X-ray radiation, including modern microfocused sources, metal-jet anodes and synchrotron sources. Chapter 13 further deals with the issue of monochromatization and collimators, and the measurement of the intensity of X-ray radiation using various detectors, including the newest semiconductor flat detectors. The chapter continues with the collection of diffraction data from single crystal diffractometers and their techniques. This is followed by chapter 14 dedicated to advanced measurement techniques: structural analysis at low temperatures and observed physical events, structural analysis at high pressures, use of anomalous scattering to determine unknown atoms, photocrystallographic methods, neutron diffraction of single crystals, and neutron diffraction of single crystals .
Chapter 15 is devoted to crystallographic databases. Chapter 16 is devoted to the issue of burst diffraction from the point of view of chemistry. The last supplementary chapter 17 supplements the mathematical apparatus.
The textbook with the title " Základy chemickej kryštalografie " and the English translation of the title " Fundamentals of chemical crystallography " has the ambition to be a basic textbook for students of chemistry and related fields studying the subjects Diffraction methods in crystal chemistry, Structural crystallography, Structural analysis and similar study courses, but it can also be useful for workers in chemistry who do not have sufficient knowledge or need to supplement their knowledge.
This work was created with the support of the Research and Development Agency under contract no. APVV-18-0016 of the Slovak Science Grant Agency (Project 1/0686/23)