Crystallography in Materials Science: Where the Atoms Are and How to Put Them There

The relationship between structure and function is foundational to understanding materials. Crystallography’s power to locate atoms makes it the ‘first responder’ when a material is discovered or models are challenged. But future discovery depends on our ability to go beyond this static picture and to understand not just where the atoms are, but how they got there, and then develop pathways to control this process. Innovations at light sources allow us to follow these synthetic processes.