Crystal Impact - Software for Chemists and Material Scientists

CRYSTAL IMPACT's basic goal is to develop high quality software which allows even non-specialist users to apply most recent scientific and software technologies. Key areas of activity are crystal structure solution, visualization, phase identification from powder, as well as crystal structure databases. Chemists, physicists and material scientists from industry and academic institutions in more than 60 countries all over the world use Crystal Impact's innovative software tools to determine, visualize and understand the crystal structures of their compounds, investigate the composition of their samples by powder diffraction, or search crystallographic databases for information about recent advancements in their area of research.

CRYSTAL IMPACT started life as a project based in the University of Bonn, where G. Bergerhoff's research group established the ICSD (Inorganic Crystal Structure Database) already in 1983. Researching new methods for detection of systematically hidden patterns in structural databases we collected a great lot of experiences in crystallographic programming. In the early 90's we developed completely new retrieval and visualization software for the ICSD, which was awarded an international software price to in 1993. In 1997 "Prof. Dr. G. Bergerhoff Software-Entwicklung" devolved upon "CRYSTAL IMPACT K. Brandenburg & M. Berndt GbR". And we still maintain close collaboration with the "pioneers" from the Institute for Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Bonn.

Who we are

Scientific objectives

The main subject of our company is the development of software for natural scientists with main stress on chemistry, crystallography, and material sciences.

• Development of integrated information systems for chemistry research and education with a special focus on crystallography.
• Combination and completion of former seperately handled methods and simplification of their handling for maximizing scientific productivity.
• Utilization of new or less common used methods by translating them into user-friendly software and embedding into integrated systems

Fields of interest

• Visualization of Crystal Structure Data
• Structural and Material Databases and Data Mining
• Materials Design
• Structure Solution from Powder Diffraction Data
• Phase Identification from Powder Diffraction Data
• Solid State Modelling

 Products & projects

• DIAMOND
  The original intent was a visualization tool especially for inorganic crystal structures with a special focus on educational and research aspects. Thus functions which allows a better understanding of structural details have been implemented even in the first version. You will find no easier way to get perfect presentations from real structures than using DIAMOND.
• ENDEAVOUR
  Based upon the well experienced DIAMOND visualization techniques, ENDEAVOUR is designed to solve crystal structures from powder diffraction data. Therefore it provides a structure model generator, which uses "Pareto-optimization" of pattern difference and potential energy. This closes the remaining gap in the process of structure solution from powder diffraction data.
• MATCH!
  Phase identification from powder diffraction data has become a daily task in material scientists work. Match! feeds the needs. Its intuitive user interface and its moderate price makes it valuable for novices as well as professionals.
• PEARSON'S CRYSTAL DATA
  The long-term experience of Pierre Villars and Karin Cenzual in classification of inorganic crystal structures mounted in a new database containing crystal structures of inorganic materials and compounds, published by ASM International and with front-end software for the MS Windows platform by Crystal Impact. In July 2007, the first release started with about 150,000 data sets, the current release 2017/18 contains about 304,000 entries.

Cooperations

	Tennessine Instrumentação Analítica, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil - Distribution of phase analysis software MATCH! in Brasil and South America
	xplorex GmbH, Rimsting am Chiemsee, Germany - Usage of phase analysis software MATCH! with "The Planet" (portable high resolution X-ray powder diffraction)
	Material Phases Data System (MPDS), Vitznau, Switzerland - Data collection and creation of PAULING FILE database; development and re-distribution of Pearson's Crystal Data CD-ROM software
	Bruker AXS, Karlsruhe, Germany - Bundling of DIAMOND with DIFFRACplus TOPAS Software

Contact

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