Olex2: Crystallography for All

Olex2: Crystallography for All
In the past, X-ray crystallography has often been seen as a 'dark art', frequently practised by highly
trained individuals, often safely tucked away somewhere in the nether regions of the world's
chemistry departments.
How things have changed! Advances in crystallographic instrumentation and software, coupled
with ever higher available computing power has transformed the field: nowadays, the majority of
structures is now originated by chemists with an interest in crystallography, and no longer by
crystallographers in an interest in... well, crystallography.
Olex2 has been designed from the ground up to be a chemist's tool: everyone can solve, refine
and build plausible models (including those containing complex disorder) with a minimum of
required prior knowledge in the field of crystallography, a minimum of effort and a lot of fun - and
still get it right.
In this presentation, I will provide a brief overview of the way Olex2 works on a fundamental level,
and will also include a few examples more advanced examples that will show how quickly you -
personally! - can tackle tricky cases of disorder with ease using Olex2.
Getting the structural model right is only one part of the requirement of a finished and publishable
structure. Keeping track of the underlying processing files and then generating a spotless CIF is
often the much harder part. Olex2 provides plenty of tools to make this easy and fail-safe.
Comprehensive reporting and image preparation tools are also provided in this single, seamless
crystallographic package.
Olex2 is open-source and available for free for Windows, MacOS and Linux. Various commercial
extension modules are also available.