A National Electron Diffraction Facility For Nanomaterial Structural Studies

Staff

Lead researchers

Professor Simon Coles

Professor of Structural Chemistry

Research interests

The work we do is highly collaborative and multidisciplinary and can broadly be split into three overlapping themes:
1) National Crystallography Service (NCS, www.ncs.ac.uk) & Physical Sciences Data-science Service (PSDS, www.psds.ac.uk) These national centres provide centralised facilities for UK researchers at a level that is beyond that achievable in any single institution. The NCS provides data collection and crystal structure analysis for the UK chemistry community. It also performs projects based on more advanced techniques, involving a dedicated team of experts employing cutting edge techniques and the use of very high-powered laboratory diffractometers or the UK synchrotron, Diamond. The PSDS provides national-level access to databases and is building infrastructure on top of these to drive and support data-driven approaches to scientific discovery.
2) Structural Chemistry We have an interest in determining the mechanisms of solid-state reactions and transformations and use a variety of diffraction and physical characterisation methods for this. Other work focuses on discovering and investigating structure-property relationships, the determination of charge densities and their properties and 'value-added' quantum mechanical calculations to compute properties from crystal structures. We also collaborate with other disciplines in a number of areas such as macromolecular crystallography (Biology), crystal growth (biology) and CT imaging (Engineering).

Connect with Simon

Email: S.J.Coles@soton.ac.uk

Other researchers

Dr Mark Light

Associate Professor

Research interests

Single crystal X-ray diffraction
Powder and materials X-ray diffraction
Total scattering and pair distribution function analysis

Connect with Mark

Email: M.E.Light@soton.ac.uk

Collaborating research institutes, centres and groups

Research outputs

Crystallizing the ncrystallizable: Insights from extensive screening of PROTACs

Martin A. Screen, James F. McCabe, Sean Askin, Jamie L. Guest, Paul Hodgkinson, Aurora J. Cruz-Cabeza, Toby J. Blundell, Daniel N. Rainer, Simon J. Coles, Alexandra Longcake, Michael R. Probert, Clare S. Mahon, Mark R. Wilson & Jonathan W. Steed, 2025, JACS AU, 147(31), 28056–28072

DOI: 10.1021/jacs.5c07977

Type: article

Synthesis and crystal structures of two related Co and Mn complexes: a celebration of collaboration between the universities of Dakar and Southampton

James B. Orton, Ngone Diouf, Rokhaya S. Gueye, Mohamed Gaye, Ibrahima Elhadji Thiam & Simon J. Coles, 2023, Acta Crystallographica Section E: Crystallographic Communications, 79(Pt 12), 1109-1114

DOI: 10.1107/S2056989023009805