Shedding light on how photoactive crystals respond in real time

Lauren Hatcher’s work is all about making movies of crystals. Using in-situ x-ray diffraction methods, her team seeks to understand how dynamic changes at the molecular level affect macroscopic properties. ‘If you better understand what’s happening, you can try and harness it to your advantage,’ she says – and her work is helping to do just that.

Like many crystallographers, Hatcher enjoys puzzling over data to put together the 3D structure of crystalline materials. A year spent working at GlaxoSmithKline as part of her undergraduate degree, learning various crystallisation techniques, furthered her interest, before she continued in the field of crystallography for her PhD. ‘You grow these beautiful crystals, and they sparkle like jewels,’ she says. ‘But it always amazes me how you can get so much information from something so tiny.’