Serial Chemical Crystallography for Autonomous Quantitative Phase Analysis in an Electron Microscope

We present serial electron diffraction with tilt (t-SerialED), a method for fast autonomous phase and structural analysis of beam-sensitive, nano-sized polycrystalline materials. Unlike traditional workflows collecting datasets crystal by crystal, t-SerialED acquires datasets using a batch-by-batch approach, which speeds up the data acquisition. t-SerialED combines robust indexing from 3D reciprocal space with still-shot integration and merging methods from serial crystallography. t-SerialED enables high-throughput analysis of beam-sensitive, multi-phase mixtures across a wide range of materials, from nanoporous frameworks to pharmaceutical compounds. By resolving key challenges in serial crystallography such as indexing and preferred orientation, this method enables precise structure determination, including the visualization of guest molecules and non-covalent interactions like hydrogen bonding and proton charge transfer. Demonstrated on a range of samples from nanoporous materials to pharmaceuticals, t-SerialED expands the capabilities of serial chemical crystallography from single-phase to complex multi-phase systems. It can become a complementary method to traditional crystallography methods, offering a robust solution for routine quantitative phase analysis and structure determination.