Building block approach spectroscopic properties

Crystal syntheses do not differ, in their essence, from classical chemical experiments in which molecules are modelled, synthetic routes devised, products characterized and their properties evaluated. However, this typical chemical approach needs, in a sense, to be repeated twice first, in order to prepare the building blocks (whether molecules or ions), and then to arrange the building blocks in a desired way via nucleation, precipitation and crystallization to attain and/or control crystal properties. Obviously, crystallization invariably implies the need to characterize the solid product, often in the form of a polycrystalline powder, for which routine analytical and spectroscopic laboratory tools are much less useful than in the case of solution chemistry. 

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