News
August 2026: We are looking forward to our renewed TEM rooms and preparation lab currently undergoing a major renovation and expansion.
July 2026: A heartly good bye to our Tecnai Spirit G2. A great machine, which makes space for our new Cryo-TEM TALOS F200 focussing on biological and soft matter research.
Ultramicroscopy 282, 114308 (2026)
🔓 April 2026: A new development in our group's software pipeline has just been published
In our latest paper, Marco Santucci and Ute Kolb present PatchworkCC, a new tracking algorithm integrated into PyFast-ADT that combines cross-correlation with a Kalman filter to follow nanocrystals reliably during automated diffraction tomography acquisitions. The paper also reports a systematic evaluation of the reproducibility and tracking precision of TEM goniometers — a benchmark long missing in the 3D electron diffraction community. PatchworkCC is fully Python-based, runs with minimum hardware requirements, and is openly available. The article is published under a CC BY 4.0 licence; data are deposited on Zenodo, the program code on GitHub, and documentation on ReadTheDocs.
→ More about this paper
March 2026:
We welcome Tobias, as the new technician at the EMC-M
and EM-CF at JGU Mainz.
February 2026:
Congratulations to Laura, finalizing her Thesis "Systematic analysis of calcium aluminate cement hydration via three dimensional electron diffraction in combination with X-ray powder diffraction and scanning electron microscopy"
June 2025:
We welcome Victor in the Group at JGU Mainz."Advanced structural studies of metal oxide nanoparticles for development of the pair distribution function from electron total scattering". (FAPESP grant. University of Campinas) During this period he will work on the development of the electron pair distribution function (ePDF) as a quantitative tool for nanostructure analysis trying to isolate the instrumental resolution function of the transmission electron microscope is the principal obstacle to quantitative ePDF.
May 2025: We are delighted to congratulate Sergi Plana-Ruiz on being awarded the Premio Extraordinario de Doctorat (Extraordinary PhD Award) by the Universitat de Barcelona for his outstanding doctoral thesis. In addition to this prestigious academic honor, he received the SME PhD Award for Technology Development from the Sociedad de Microscopía de España. These international distinctions highlight the high methodological value of his research on fast, automated electron diffraction approaches. Together with his German accolades, these awards underscore the profound technological impact of his co-tutelle dissertation.
J. Am. Chem. Soc. 146, 9880–9887 (2024)
June 2024:
High-temperature electron diffraction on organic crystals: in-situ structure determination of Pigment Orange 34
Organic pigments are highly beam-sensitive and often available only as tiny crystallites. Using 3D electron diffraction at elevated temperature, the crystal structure of Pigment Orange 34 was determined in situ, directly following the phase behaviour of the material — a showcase for structure analysis of beam-sensitive organics.
August 2023: We welcome Magda, our new Post-Doc at TU-Darmstadt. Magda is working in the CRC 1548 "Fermi level engineering applied to oxide electro ceramics" at TU Darmstadt. Her focus is to solve crystal structures of doped perowskites and brownmillerites by three-dimensional electron diffraction on individual nanocrystals. A quantification of different dimensional defects will be developed with a focus on twinnning.
May 2023: Congratulations to Isabell for finalizing her master thesis and her start as research assistant in our group. Her topic are complex silicate structures and diffuse scattering.
March 2023: Congratulations to Melanie, for finalizing her master thesis. She has started her PhD now. She works on organic materials rangeing from pharmaceuticals to materials for organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs).
February 2023: We welcome Jane and Nathalie, who are joining the group in Darmstadt. Nathalie is doing her PhD and Jane is a student assistant. Both were previously in Oliver Clemens' group at the TU Darmstadt.
August 2022: 33rd European Crystallography Meeting in Versailles
Three of our colleagues attended the 33rd European Crystallography Meeting from August 23-27, 2022. All three presented their posters on the topics "Structure Determination Study of Beam Sensitive Organics with 3D Electron Diffraction", "3DED Experimental Parameter Optimization for Metal Organic Frameworks" and "Structure solution using 3DED of beam and vacuum sensitive Metal Organic Frameworks".
We would especially like to congratulate Laura Gemmrich Hernandez, who won two poster prizes. Together with Sara Passuti she won the SIG-04 and NanoMEGAS prize in the field of electron diffraction. In addition, she won the CHARMMMAT LABEX prize in the field of advanced and functional materials.
January 2022: We congratulate Dr. Sergi Plana-Ruiz for his pioneering doctoral research has been highly recognized within the German scientific community through multiple prestigious accolades. He now was honored with the renowned Harald Rose Prize, an award celebrating outstanding work that advances the fields of electron microscopy and particle optics.
January 2022: We welcome Melanie and Isabell, who are joining the group for their Master´s thesis projects.
NanED launched in 2021: We welcome Laura Gemmrich-Hernandéz and Marco Santucci in the group
The NanED Project - Electron Nanocrystallography, is an Innovative Training Network, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, project funded by EU (grant agreement n. 956099) aimed to train a new generation of electron crystallographers thereby paving the way for future development and establishment of the method more broadly in the academic community and within the industry. NanED is now recruiting 15 PhD students focused on the application of 3D electron diffraction to the structure solution of nanocrystalline inorganic, organic and macromolecular compounds. The PhD students will work in the best European laboratories and universities where 3D electron diffraction has been developed.
January 2021: Congratulations to Sergi Plana-Ruiz, finalizing his Thesis "Development & Implementation of an Electron Diffraction Approach for Crystal Structure Analysis". His dissertation was named the best of the year by the Vereinigung von Freunden der TU Darmstadt, securing the TU Darmstadt Dissertation Award for the Department of Materials and Earth Sciences.
Ute Kolb receives IUCr Gjønnes Medal in Electron Crystallography in 2020
The IUCr Gjønnes Medal in Electron Crystallography has been awarded to Sven Hovmöller and Ute Kolb for their pioneering work in the field of electron crystallography, particularly for developing 3D electron diffraction techniques. This highly recognized price has been awarded since 2008 every third year to high impact contributions in the field of electron microscopy (2008 J. Gjønnes, 2011 A. Howie & M. J. Whelan, 2014 J. Steeds & M. Tanaka, 2017 R. Henderson & N. Unwin). Sven Hovmöller and Ute Kolb will receive their award during the 25th IUCr Congress in Prague, Czech Republic, in August 2021, where they will share the presentation of a Keynote Lecture. (image: IUCR)
A hydrated crystalline calcium carbonate phase: Calcium carbonate hemihydrate
As one of the most abundant materials in the world, calcium carbonate, CaCO3, is the main constituent of the skeletons and shells of various marine organisms. It is used in cement industry and plays a crucial role in the global carbon cycle and formation of sedimentary rocks. For more than a century, only three polymorphs of pure CaCO3—calcite, aragonite, and vaterite—were known to exist at ambient conditions, as well as two hydrated crystal phases, monohydrocalcite (CaCO3·1H2O) and ikaite (CaCO3·6H2O). A hitherto unknown monoclinic nano crystalline phase, hemihydrate CaCO3·½H2O, was solved based on automated diffraction tomography (ADT) data.
Nature Communications 9:1374 (2018)
A high-strength silicide phase in a stainless steel alloy designed for wear-resistant applications
Hardfacing alloys provide strong, wear-resistant and corrosion-resistant coatings for extreme environments such as those within nuclear reactors. Here, we report an ultra-high-strength Fe–Cr–Ni silicide phase, named π-ferrosilicide, within a hardfacing Fe-based alloy (2.5 times harder than the surrounding austenite and ferrite phases). Electron diffraction tomography (EDT) has allowed the determination of the atomic structure of this phase.
Acta Cryst. A74, 93-101 (2018)
Ab initio structure determination and quantitative disorder analysis on nanoparticles by electron diffraction tomography
Small particle size, various types of disorder and intergrown structures render the description of many structures at atomic level by standard crystallographic methods difficult. Here a proof-of-principle study, the characterization of the strongly disordered zeolite beta structure using a combination of electron exit-wave reconstruction, automated diffraction tomography (ADT), crystal disorder modelling and electron diffraction simulations is reported. The crystal structures of two intergrown Zeolite Beta polymorphs BEA and BEB were solved from a single automated diffraction tomography (ADT) data set by direct methods. The ratio for BEA/BEB = 48:52 was determined by analysis of the diffuse scattering extracted from the reconstructed intensity space based on ADT data and comparison with simulated electron diffraction data.