Getting crystals your crystallographer will treasure: a beginner's guide.

Single crystal growth for the use of X-ray diffraction can be a major stumbling path to getting good X-ray diffraction data and results for this highly used and, in some cases, required analytical technique. The growing of good single crystals is often learned by experience and has been considered an art form for many years. Presented in this paper are some of the fundamental aspects that can help a chemist generate good single crystals to take to the crystallographer or the instrument.