✓ Rigaku and JEOL will unify their core technologies—Rigaku’s high-speed, high-sensitivity photon-counting detector (HPC) and state-of-the-art single crystal software, and JEOL’s transmission electron microscope—to create an integrated MicroED platform providing one-step structure solutions with electron crystallography.
✓ The resulting MicroED platform, based on the synergistic collaboration of both companies, will provide a solution for the needs of leading-edge structural science to elucidate three-dimensional molecular structures from single crystals smaller than 100 nm
Rigaku (Akishima, Tokyo, Japan) has entered into an agreement with JEOL (Akishima, Tokyo, Japan), a leading company in electron microscope technologies, for the joint development of a MicroED platform to solve the structures of sub-micron crystals using electron crystallography.
Single crystal X-ray crystallography has long been the primary technique used to determine the 3D molecular structure of inorganic, organic and protein molecules. Rigaku’s latest HPC detector and advancements in X-ray source brilliance have reduced the minimum measurable crystal size to the order of a few microns. However, it is often the case that the crystals that researchers can obtain of new materials are smaller than 100 nm. These nanoscale crystals have traditionally been out of the scope of X-ray crystallography.
Recently, electron crystallography, typically called MicroED, has been in the spotlight as a method to address the need to measure increasingly small nanoscale crystals. The strong matter interactions provided by electrons offer the potential to study these smaller samples. Electron crystallography has a long history, but it has not been commonly used because of the severe radiation damage it causes to organic and protein molecules. The HPC detector addresses this issue with its excellent sensitivity and extremely low noise characteristics, reducing the required exposure to electrons to the level where sample decay can be ignored.
Rigaku has long been at the forefront of advanced analytical X-ray instrumentation and JEOL is a leading company in the field of electron microscopy. Both companies are market leaders in their respective industries. The scope of the joint development includes integration of Rigaku’s high-speed, high-sensitivity HPC detector and state-of-the-art CrysAlisPro structure analysis software platform with JEOL’s high-performance transmission electron microscope technology. The resulting system will provide researchers with a completely integrated solution for performing MicroED experiments. Rigaku and JEOL will synergistically contribute to the scientific research frontier through the introduction of an easy-to-use MicroED platform that greatly reduces the crystalline sample size necessary for 3D structure determination.
About JEOL
Since its foundation in 1949, JEOL has worked hard to expand its business in electron microscopes, analytical instruments, medical instruments, and industrial instruments based on the founding principle “contributing to the progress in both Science and Human Society” on the basis of “Creativity” and “Research & Development”
Ahead of other manufacturers, with the global market in mind, we established a worldwide organization to facilitate sales and service activities. This effort has borne fruit, and today our instruments are being utilized everywhere in the world, and our reputation as a genuine global company has been firmly established.
We will continue to enhance our global sales and service network which can meet the times and satisfy our customers’ needs with speed, while also providing the optimal solutions for customers to achieve future innovation, based on our corporate message of “Solutions for Innovation”.
About Rigaku
Since its inception in 1951, Rigaku has been at the forefront of analytical and industrial instrumentation technology. Today, with hundreds of major innovations to their credit, the Rigaku Group of Companies are world leaders in the fields of general X-ray diffraction (XRD), thin film analysis (XRF, XRD and XRR), X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (TXRF, EDXRF and WDXRF), small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), protein and small molecule X-ray crystallography, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray optics, semiconductor metrology (TXRF, XRF, XRD and XRR), X-ray sources, computed tomography, nondestructive testing and thermal analysis.
With Rigaku’s vast understanding of X-ray physics and complementary technologies as a foundation, the company’s true strength is seen in an unparalleled willingness to collaborate with our customers. By promoting partnerships, dialogs, and innovation within the global scientific and industrial communities, Rigaku demonstrates a relentless commitment to providing our client markets with fully integrated solutions.
The company and its employees are dedicated to developing and supplying universities, industry, and government labs with the ultimate in customer-focused integrated solutions across a wide variety of disciplines, including structural proteomics, nanoengineering research, general purpose X-ray diffraction (XRD) and spectroscopy (XRF), materials analysis and quality assurance.
Whether supplying the tools to create better semiconductor chips, enabling drug discovery, improving production line quality, or exploring the new frontier of nanotechnology, Rigaku products and services lead with innovation.