The triennial meetings of the International Union of Crystallography represent a highlight for crystallographers worldwide. This year , from the 22-30 August, the XXII International Congress and General Assembly of the IUCr will take place in beautiful Madrid, Spain. I will be there from 22-25 August on behalf of CrystEngComm – please do send me an email if you wish to arrange a meeting. The Chair of the CrystEngComm Editorial Board, Len MacGillivray and Associate Editor for the Americas, Christer Aakeroy will also be at this conference.
You can register for the meeting here and more information is available on the conference website. Looking forward to seeing you there!
James D. Wuest and co-workers from the University of Montréal, Canada, look at crystalline amino-substituted azines in this CrystEngComm Hot article.
This CrystEngComm Hot article describes the fabrication of SnO2/α-Fe2O3 nanoheterostructures by a hydrothermal process.
CrystEngComm‘s themed issue on 
Lithium niobate (LN), a nonlinear optical material in its single crystal form, is well proven as a potential and unique material for its use in advanced photonic device applications like second-harmonic generation, optical switching, optical modulators, holographic data storage, acousto-optic and ferroelectric. The transition and rare earth metal ions (Fe, Mn, Cuand Ce) improve the data storage capabilities of LN by improving its photorefraction efficiency. However, when the concentration of dopants in the crystal increase, high geometric strains develop in the lattice resulting in the agglomeration of point defects, the formation of dislocations finally leading to structural boundaries. These defects mask or partially/completely deteriorate some of the anisotropic physical properties of the single crystals and reduce the efficiency of the devices made out of these crystals.
In this HOT article, ZnO nanorods were helped to “stand” vertically on microsubstrates by an interesting seed-mediated approach. Taking ZnO nanosheets as the microsubstrates, ZnO nanorods can grow vertically, not lying horizontally, on the facets with the aid of a seed layer precoating to form hierarchical ZnO nanorod-nanosheet architectures. The diameter as well as the length of the standing nanorods can be controlled effectively by adjusting the growth time and the amount of ammonia in the growth solution. The precoated seed layer has been found to be the key factor in determining the resultant morphology.