Pushing crystallography's frontiers through quantum mechanics

Yu & Gillet [Acta Cryst. (2025), B81, 168–180] extend quantum crystallography (QCr) by integrating real-space (1-RDM) and phase-space (Wigner function) representations, combining elastic and inelastic X-ray scattering to experimentally probe electron behavior in crystals. Their reconstruction of the quantum properties of a urea crystal bridges quantum chemistry and crystallography in a novel and imaginative way.