2018 年 60 巻 4 号 p. 177-184
Enantiomers, or stereoisomers, have crystal structures that are mirror images of each other and are thus handed, like our right and left hands. Low-quartz(SiO2)and Berlinite(AlPO4)have enantiomers belonging to a space-group pair, P3121(right-handed screw)and P3221(left-handed screw). We show that resonant Bragg diffraction using positive and negative circularly polarized X-rays at the resonant energies reveals the handedness of crystals by X-ray helicity coupling to a crystal screw axis. Our results are of general importance and demonstrate a new method to directly study chiral motifs in structures that include biomaterials, liquid crystals, magnets, multiferroics, etc.