Same or different – that is the question: identification of crystal forms from crystal structure data

The correct identification and recognition of different solid forms is critical in chemical #Crystallography. Traditionally this task required careful crystallographic analyses of the experimental crystals’ structure, morphology and physical properties. In the information era, however, and with the growing availability of structures in the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD), we rely more and more on the comparison of experimental data to data available in databases stored often as structural CIF files.

The CSD represents the first example of modern scientific database collecting over one million crystal structure data.

Read more on this topic in the Royal Society of Chemistry CrystEngComm CSD special, which features, a front cover by Pietro Sacchi, Matteo Lusi,  Aurora J. Cruz-Cabeza, Elisa Nauhac and Joel Bernstein and paper, titled “Same or different – that is the question: identification of crystal forms from crystal structure data†”

The CSD was inspired by  JD Bernal, whom this institute is named after, Bernal was driven by a belief that science and technology would improve the living standards of humanity.