Identification of the chirality of intermetallic compounds by electron diffraction

A new CBED method is proposed for the identification of the chirality of enantiomorphic crystals, in which asymmetry in the intensity of the reflections of Bijvoet pairs in an experimental symmetrical zone-axis CBED pattern is compared with that of a computer-simulated CBED pattern. The intensity difference for reflections of these Bijvoet pairs results from multiple scattering among relevant Bijvoet pairs of reflections, each pair of which has identical amplitude and different phase angles. With the method, a single CBED pattern is sufficient and chiral identification can be made for all possible enantiomorphic crystals that are allowed to exist in crystallography. The method is successfully applied to some chiral intermetallic compounds.