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Quasi-Laue diffractometer LADI-III

The Laue diffractometer LADI-III is mainly used for single-crystal studies of macromolecules at high resolution (1.5 - 2.5 Å) in order to locate individual protons or deuterons of special interest, water structures or other small molecules that can be marked with deuterium to be particularly visible. The complexity of systems that can be studied can reach about 150 Å on cell edge and the sample volumes required can be as low as 0.1-0.2 mm3.

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Quasi-Laue diffractometer LADI III

Phone on instrument LADI+33 (0)4 76 20 7055

Instrument Team

NameFirst namePhone(s)SecretaryEmailFunction
BLAKELEYMatthew+33 (0)4 76 20 7054 +33 (0)4 76 20 7356blakeleym(at)ill.frResponsible
TEIXEIRASusana+33 (0)4 76 20 7953
+33 (0)4 76 20 9437		+33 (0)4 76 20 7356teixeira(at)ill.frCo-responsible
DAUVERGNEFrancois+33 (0)4 76 20 7262 +33 (0)4 76 20 7269fdauver(at)embl.frTechnician

Instrument Layout

General view

LADI III uses a large cylindrical area detector composed of neutron-sensitive image-plates (NIPs) which completely surround the sample and allows large numbers of Bragg reflections to be recorded simultaneously. Data is collected using a quasi-Laue method in order to provide a rapid survey of reciprocal space, while reducing the background on the detector compared to use of the full white beam. The sample crystal is mounted on a goniometer head on the cylinder axis, and can be rotated around this axis.
A data collection is a fully automated sequence of: sample orientation, neutron exposure, image-plate readout, data acquisition and image-plate erasure.


The neutron beam arrives on the sample through the wall behind the instrument

  1. Sample holder
  2. X and y stepper motors on sample table for aligning the crystal
  3. Sample table
  4. Drum with the image plate detector inside
  5. Detector table
  6. Air-pads


  1. Drum
  2. Image-plate (the neutron detector)
  3. Read-out/erasure system
  4. Worm lifting the head (3) up and down while the image plate is spinning