We are committed to teaching crystallography and diffraction methods for the characterisation of materials at all levels, and can offer courses of various lengths at graduate and undergraduate levels, short courses and workshops on specific crystallographic topics, as well as tuition and training in diffractometry for research groups.
Contact us if you would like us to come and teach a course or a workshop, or if you have ideas for other educational events for crystallography.
Bayreuth EosFit Workshop 2024
We taught a 1.5 day workshop on using EosFit on 21,22 March 2024 at the Bayerisches Geoinstitut, immediately after the Annual Meeting of the German Crystallographic Society (DGK) in Bayreuth. Workshop details here.
Online Eos Course 2023
In the first semester of the 2023-24 acadamic year we taught a full lecture course online about the theory, fitting and applications of EoS, open to all research students. Details here.
Rigaku High-pressure Workshop 2021
Ross Angel gave a lecture on data reduction for DAC data at the 2021 Rigaku High-pressure Workshop. All of the lectures are available on the Rigaku website.
European Crystallography Meeting 2019
Ross Angel and Javier Gonzalez-Platas will attend the European Crystallography Meeting in Vienna, 18-23 August,2019. We will present the new features in EoSFit in the Crystallographic Software Fayre on Monday 19 August at 13:15.
PhD School 2019
On 6 - 8 May the PhD School of Physics and Geology of the University of Perugia hosted an intensive (20 hours) course and workshop in which Ross Angel taught EoS theory and how to use the EoSFit software to fit data and do EoS calculations.
International Crystallography School 2016
The 2016 International Crystallography School and NATO Advanced Study Institute was devoted to high pressure crystallography and took place in Erice, Sicily, Italy from May 27th to June 5th 2016. Workshops included guided tutorials on EosFit and Absorb.
More information at the school website.
International Diamond School 2015
In Janury 2015, the INDIMEDEA project organised the second International Diamond School at the University of Padova Centre in Brixen - Bressanone, in the Italian Alps. The school provided a general overview of the most recent advances in diamond research as well as an introduction to modern techniques for diamond exploration. The workshops included tutorials in using EosFit to determine pressures and temperatures of diamond formation from the remnant pressures of inclusions trapped within diamonds.
ECM High-Pressure Workshops
Single-crystal diffraction provides the most accurate structural data on the compression of crystalline solids. The methods for high-pressure diffraction developed over the last 3 decades are mature and easy to use in both the laboratory and at synchrotron sources, but are not well known throughout the crystallographic community. In summer 2008 a group of high-pressure crystallographers from Europe and the USA met in Padova (Italy) to discuss how to promote high-pressure single-crystal methods. On the occasion of a second meeting a year later in Copenhagen (Denmark) we agreed to meet on a regular basis and decided to offer a first workshop open to everybody in association with the 26th European Crystallography Meeting held in Darmstadt, Germany (September 3-4, 2010).
You can find further details and download the presentations from the Darmstadt workshop here, and the workshop held in 2012 in association with the ECM meeting in Bergen (Norway) here. In 2015 we held a workshop devoted exclusively to EoSFit at the ECM in Rovinj.
Courses and Workshops
We offer the following courses, that can be adjusted from semester length (27 lectures) down to short-courses as appropriate for your needs and the time available.
Fundamentals of Crystallography. A course that covers the fundamentals of crystallography - symmetry and lattices. After completing the course the students will understand crystallographic geometry, crystal systems, plane groups, point groups and space groups, and be able to apply their knowledge to interpret crystallographic data as reported in the literature. Suitable for all areas of crystallography from materials science and engineering through chemistry and mineralogy to structural biology.
Diffraction Crystallography. A course that introduces the fundamentals of diffraction including single-crystal and powder diffraction, including structure solution and refinement. After completing the course the students will know the methods for collecting diffraction data and will be able to solve and refine structures to single-crystal data, and to perform Rietveld refinements with the GSAS package. The Rietveld component is also offered as a stand-alone course.
Elasticity of materials. This course introduces the concepts of elasticity and their application to solve scientific questions in materials engineering, geology, crystallography and mineralogy. The course is organized in to three modules:
I: Static equations of state, volume variation with pressure and temperature, with applications to thermodynamics and phase equilibria.
II: The static elastic properties of crystals, and applications to hydrostatic and non-hydrostatic conditions, including element partitioning, and phase transitions in minerals.
III: Dynamic elasticity: Elastic waves, including seismic anisotropy of rocks.
In each module the practical aspects of measuring the elastic properties of materials, the relationship between elastic properties of materials and their structure and bonding, and the practical application of elasticity data to solve geological questions will be emphasized. No previous knowledge of elasticity theory is required.
Thermodynamics, phase transitions. Structural phase transitions provide the most sensitive probes of the structure and bonding in crystals and their relation to macroscopic thermodynamic properties. In particular, the combination of Landau thermodynamic analysis and a determination of the structural evolution by crystallographic methods provides a unique and direct connection between 'structure' and 'function' in materials, which can be easily exploited with recently-developed software tools.
Training
We can offer you specialised training in single-crystal diffraction methods, especially in the field of high-pressure diffraction with diamond-anvil cells.
Ross Angel