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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1980 Oct;77(10):5884–5888. doi: 10.1073/pnas.77.10.5884

White lines in L-edge x-ray absorption spectra and their implications for anomalous diffraction studies of biological materials.

R C Lye, J C Phillips, D Kaplan, S Doniach, K O Hodgson
PMCID: PMC350176  PMID: 6934520

Abstract

We have measured high-resolution x-ray absorption spectra of lanthanide (Ln) and heavy transition metal complexes that display prominent narrow absorption peaks near the L2 and L3 absorption edges. The anomalous scattering factors (f' and f"), which are mathematically related to the absorption cross section, have correspondingly sharp changes in their magnitude within 5-10 eV of the absorption edge. Calculations of the magnitude of the change in f' and f" demonstrate that significant changes (on the order of 20 electrons in f') can be expected for these materials. These substantial changes in the anomalous scattering factors have applications to deriving structural information for macromolecules from x-ray diffraction studies. The magnitude of the changes indicate that the anomalous scattering technique is a powerful means of obtaining structural characteristics for macromolecules in single crystals, in solution, and in biological membranes.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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