A method for solving structures from powder diffraction data was developed,
and its validity was demonstrated on three complex structures. The method
uses a textured sample and exploits the high intensity and parallel nature
of synchrotron radiation. In principle, crystal structures as complex as th
ose routinely solved by single-crystal methods can be determined with this
approach. For example, the as-synthesized form of the zeolite UTD-1, with 6
9 nonhydrogen atoms in the asymmetric unit, could be solved directly. With
this method, a larger range of structural complexity becomes accessible to
scientists interested in the structures of polycrystalline materials that c
annot be grown as single crystals.