Phase Reconstruction from Crystals with Rotational Disorder

DASHH Doctoral Researcher: Michael Größler

Supervisors: Prof. Henry Chapman (DESY, UHH), Dr. Anton Barty (DESY), Prof. Matthias Rarey (UHH)

With the advent of new measuring techniques in protein crystallography novel methods have to be developed to make sense of the acquired data. XFELs allow for measuring smaller and weaker bonding protein crystals which results in random motion between single molecules. This work focuses on developing methods for phase retrieval from crystals with translational and rotational disorder. While translational disorder leads to a measurable diffuse scattering pattern beyond Bragg Peaks, rotational displacement creates noticeable blurring in the measurements. A fast, adapted iterative phasing scheme has been implemented to reconstruct phases despite the presence of such artifacts.