Special issue of CHIMIA dedicated to the International Year of Crystallography, vol. 68, issues 1-2

The Swiss Chemical Society is publishing a special issue of their journal CHIMIA dedicated to the International Year of Crystallography. The guest editors are Professor Hans-Beat Bürgi of the Universities of Bern and Zurich, and Professor Katharina M. Fromm of the University of Fribourg.

This special issue has been taken as an ideal opportunity for Swiss crystallographers to remind the chemical community of their past contributions to physical, inorganic and organic chemistry and to make them aware of plans for the future. Such a reminder seems especially important now as several crystallography laboratories at Swiss universities have been closed down in the past or are planned for closure in the near future.

The CHIMIA issue is arranged in three parts:

(1) Important achievements of crystallography over the past 100 years, with an overview of contributions from Swiss crystallographic laboratories.

(2) Presentations of current work showing the diversity of activities in service laboratories, industry and academia.

(3) What can be expected from the (near) future?

The contents of the issue are as follows:

Historical

D. Schwarzenbach (EPFL, Lausanne)
‘Seeing’ Atoms: The Crystallographic Revolution

Present

A. Neels, O. Sereda, T. Bandi  (CSEM, Neuchâtel)
  Crystallographic Services and Technology Support for Industry
A. Crochet (University of Fribourg)
Crystallography for University Research. Some Case Studies
H. D. Flack (University of Geneva)
 Absolute-Structure Determination: Past, Present and Future
P. Macchi (University of Bern)
  Crystallographic approaches for the investigation of molecular materials: structure property relationships and reverse crystal engineering
L. McCusker, Ch. Bärlocher (ETHZ, Zurich)
  Solving the Structures of Polycrystalline Materials: From the Debye-Scherrer Camera to SwissFEL
P. Schouwink, R. Ĉerný (University of Geneva)
 Complex Hydrides: When Powder Diffraction Needs Help
W. Steurer (ETHZ, Zurich)
 Quasicrystals - a paradigm change in crystallography?
K.-H. Ernst (EMPA, Zurich)
 Stereochemistry of 2D molecular crystallization
M. Grütter (University of Zurich)
 Biocrystallography in Switzerland: achievements and future perspectives

Chimia (2014) Volume 68, issues 1-2