are there advantages to using crystals?
Crystals offer a stronger signal due to their periodicity.
X-ray crystallography
 However, crystals offer a much stronger signal due to their periodicity. A crystalline sample is by definition periodic; a crystal is composed of many unit cells repeated indefinitely in three independent directions. Such periodic systems have a Fourier transform that is concentrated at periodically repeating points in reciprocal space known as "Bragg peaks"; the Bragg peaks correspond to the reflection spots observed in the diffraction image. Since the amplitude at these reflections grows linearly with the number "N" of scatterers, the observed "intensity" of these spots should grow quadratically, like "N". In other words, using a crystal concentrates the weak scattering of the individual unit cells into a much more powerful, coherent reflection that can be observed above the noise. This is an example of constructive interference.
who is robert dirks? An American chemist known for his theoretical and experimental work in DNA nanotechnology. what is the full form of dna? Deoxyribonucleic acid what are the applications of the last technology you mentioned? X-ray crystallography, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy of proteins what are its different types of designs? Structural design, Sequence design what can you tell me about the first type? Representation by a specific arrangement of nucleic acid strands. and the second type? Nucleic acid design is the process of assigning a specific nucleic acid base sequence to each of a structure's constituent strands so that they will associate into a desired conformation. did the chemist have a nickname? UNANSWERABLE where did he study? Wabash College when did he die? February 3, 2015 what is the limitations of the first application of the technology that you mentioned? It can only be performed if the sample is in crystal form; As the crystal's repeating unit cell, becomes larger and more complex, the atomic-level picture provided by X-ray crystallography becomes more fuzzy
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X-ray crystallography [SEP] Advantages of a crystal
In principle, an atomic structure could be determined from applying X-ray scattering to non-crystalline samples, even to a single molecule. However, crystals offer a much stronger signal due to their periodicity. A crystalline sample is by definition periodic; a crystal is composed of many unit cells repeated indefinitely in three independent directions. Such periodic systems have a Fourier transform that is concentrated at periodically repeating points in reciprocal space known as "Bragg peaks"; the Bragg peaks correspond to the reflection spots observed in the diffraction image. Since the amplitude at these reflections grows linearly with the number "N" of scatterers, the observed "intensity" of these spots should grow quadratically, like "N".