Quantitative phase determination for macromolecular crystals using stereoscopic multibeam imaging

Without invoking anomalous dispersion and heavy-atom derivatives, it is demonstrated that it is possible to directly determine the phases of a large number of reflections collected in a short time from macromol­ecular crystals using a stereoscopic oscillation-crystal imaging technique, in a multibeam diffraction geometry, where two crystallographic axes in opposite directions are employed as the rotation axes. The intensity profiles (distributions) of the diffraction spots versus the varying tilt Bragg angle of the rotation axis in the two stereoscopically related images yield quantitative phase information. Many multiple diffraction profiles of tetragonal lysozyme and an unknown protein structure are obtained at the rate of 100 profiles per 30 min of X-ray exposure.