Īlthough the majority of single-crystal diffraction studies at high pressure have been performed using four-circle diffractometers with point detectors, data collection times may run into weeks, especially for relatively weakly diffracting organic samples with low-symmetry crystal systems and unit-cell volumes in excess of 1000 Å 3. Data sets collected at high pressure often contain some significant outliers these can be identified during merging using a robust resistant weighting scheme, as described by Blessing. Corrections for absorption are carried out in a two-stage procedure comprising an analytical correction for absorption by the cell, followed by a second multi-scan correction. Shading also reduces the volume of reciprocal space that can be sampled, although this can be increased by performing data collections at more than one pressure-cell setting. Integration routines attempt to harvest intensity data from regions of the detector that are shaded by the body of the pressure cell, and a procedure for generating dynamic masks is described. Procedures for the selection of spots for indexing are described. High-pressure diffraction images are contaminated by powder lines from the gasket and backing-disk materials, which form part of the pressure cell, and very intense spots from the diamond anvils.
![bruker apex ccd detector diffractometer bruker apex ccd detector diffractometer](https://blue-scientific.com/wp-content/uploads/bruker-photon-ii-sc-xrd-detector.jpg)
The data collection strategy is defined by the requirements that (i) the incident beam must illuminate the sample and (ii) no more than 80% of the detector should be shaded by the body of the pressure cell.
![bruker apex ccd detector diffractometer bruker apex ccd detector diffractometer](https://www.inorgchem2.nat.fau.de/files/2021/10/duo_photon2_3-scaled.jpg)
![bruker apex ccd detector diffractometer bruker apex ccd detector diffractometer](http://chemgroups.ucdavis.edu/~olmstead/graphics/SMART_3LR.jpg)
Centring a sample in a pressure cell is complicated by the restrictions on viewing the sample imposed by the body of the cell. This paper describes some practical experience in the application of one CCD instrument, the Bruker–Nonius SMART APEX (a fixed- χ instrument). Although CCD instruments are now widely used in single-crystal diffraction, they have not been employed so extensively in crystallographic studies at high pressure.