An analysis of the microstructure of nanocrystalline cerium oxide produced by thermal decomposition of cerium (IV) oxide nitrate at temperatures in the range 230° to 960 °C is described. Parameters describing the breadths and shape of X-ray diffraction line profiles were obtained by means of pattern decomposition and a method based on the Voigt function was used to obtain information on the temperature dependence of the microstructure. No marked anisotropy in size and strain broadening was observed. It was found that the crystallites are on average spherical, the dimensions increasing significantly with formation temperature, while microstrains decrease with annealing temperature. The results of size determinations were compared with SEM measurements. They suggest a competition between the crystallite growth and “particle” growth processes in the initial sintering of the loosely packed cerium oxide powder.

Neutron diffraction provides a direct probe for the ordering of spins from unpaired electrons in materials with magnetic properties. The ordering of the spins can be modeled in many cases by adding spin directions to standard crystallographic models. This requires, however, that crystallographic space groups be extended by addition of a “color” attribute to symmetry operations, which determines if the operation maintains or flips the direction of a magnetic spin. Rietveld analysis provides a mechanism for fitting magnetic structure models to powder diffraction data. The general structure and analysis system (GSAS) software suite is commonly used for Rietveld analysis and includes the ability to compute magnetic scattering. Different approaches are commonly used within GSAS to create models that include magnetism. Three equivalent but different approaches are presented to provide a tutorial on how magnetic scattering data may be modeled using differing treatment of symmetry. Also discussed is how magnetic models may be visualized. The commands used to run the GSAS programs are summarized within, but are shown in great detail in supplementary web pages.

The compressive stress distribution below the specimen surface of severely surface deformed steels by shot peening was investigated by using laboratory X-rays and high-energy X-rays from a synchrotron radiation source, SPring-8 in the Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute. Medium carbon steel plates were heat treated in two different conditions. The Vickers hardness of materials A and B after heat treatment is 408 and 617 HV, respectively. The specimens were shot peened with fine cast iron particles of the size of 50 μm. The coverage was selected to be 5000%. For the synchrotron radiation, by using the monochromatic X-ray beam with several energy levels, the stress values at the arbitrary penetration depth were measured by the constant penetration depth method. The shot-peened specimens were fatigued under four-point bending. The improvement of fatigue strength of material A was not so large because of large surface roughness. On the other hand, for material B, the surface roughness was smaller and the fatigue strength was higher than that of ground specimens.

Standard Reference Materials (SRM) are stable materials which have one or more properties certified by the National Bureau of Standards. A general introduction is given to the types of SRM's and their certification. SRM's for X-ray diffraction are described in detail, including their intended use and their certified and other properties. New SRM's are under consideration as quantitative standards, intensity and line shape standards, and materials properties standards.

Pearson VII functions, some of the most useful descriptions of the intensity distribution within the X-ray powder reflection, have been used to study distortion in the perovskite-type structure of KMnF3. Separate full-widths, Δ, at half-maximum intensity, and Pearson exponents, m, were taken for the low- and high-angle sides of the profiles. The background was assumed to be linear. For the distorted structure, summation was made over all overlapping lines that might possibly contribute to the observed profile. Measurements were performed using a powder diffractometer with a specially adapted electronic system consisting of an automatic data recorder and a method, developed at this laboratory, for transferring data to an IBM PC/AT computer. By these means it could be shown that at 10° K the crystal structure of KMnF3distorts from cubic to monoclinic.

The fitting of a parabola by least squares regression to the upper portion of diffraction peaks is commonly used for determining lattice spacing in residual stress measurement. When Kα techniques are employed, the presence of the Kα doublet is shown to lead to significant potential error and non- linearities in lattice spacing as a function of Sin2ψ caused by variation in the degree of blending of the doublet. An algorithm is described for fitting Pearson VII distribution functions to determine the position of the Kα component, eliminating errors caused by defocusing of diffraction peaks of intermediate breadth. The method is applied to determine the subsurface residual stress distribution in ground TI-6 AI- 4 V, comparing directly the use of parabolic and Pearson VII peak profiles, and is shown to provide precision better than ± 1%% in elastic constant determination.

A new preparation procedure to obtain tetragonal pure zirconia powders is reported together with a detailed analysis of the profile of X-ray Diffraction (XRD) peaks. The crystallization kinetic up to 800°C is described through r.m.s. microstrain and crystallite size distributions. The results of two methods of profile analysis are compared. After thermal treatments up to 100°C the samples of amorphous gel prepared crystallize in the tetragonal structure. The monoclinic phase occurs only above this temperature. Moreover the tetragonal to monoclinic transformation has a strong effect in changing the shape of the distributions. Studying the crystallite size distributions we can infer a critical size of about 300 Å for the tetragonal crystallites to transform. The shape of the mean crystallite of a fully tetragonal sample is also described.

We have calculated X-ray powder-diffraction data for schoepite, [(UO2)8O2(OH)12](H2O)12, using unit-cell and atomic parameters from the crystal structure (a 14.337, b 16.813, c 14.781, Z=4, Dx=4.87 gcm−3). Schoepite crystallizes in space group P21ca but is strongly pseudo- centrosymmetric, and observed reflections (Irel>0.1%) conform to space group Pbca. The six strongest reflections for schoepite are [d(Å), hkl (relative intensity)] 7.365, 002 (100), 3.253, 242 (55), 3.626, 240 (36), 3.223, 402 (25), 3.683, 004 (20), 2.584, 244 (18). The calculated intensities of reflections that distinguish space group Pbca from space group Pbna (the space group of metaschoepite), i.e., h0l with h odd and l even, are weak, and may not be evident in experimental powder patterns. The a axis of schoepite (14.34 Å) is significantly longer than that of synthetic metaschoepite (13.98 Å), and the two phases can best be distinguished by their unit-cell parameters. However, potential overlap of the strongest reflections can make identification and unit-cell determination difficult, especially for fine-grained material. Natural samples commonly contain intergrowths of schoepite, metaschoepite, and dehydrated schoepite. The calculated powder pattern for schoepite agrees well with data reported for natural schoepite (PDF 13-241) but shows discrepancies with the data from synthesis products. Data for “synthetic schoepite” indicate that this product was a mixture. Powder data labeled “paraschoepite” in the Powder Diffraction File do not correspond to the mineral of that name.

Powder X-ray diffraction has become a routine procedure for the quantification of phases in mixtures. The most common method for this measurement is the Rietveld method, which generally returns the relative weight percentages of the crystalline components within the mixture. However, in many instances, it is also desirable to obtain an estimate of the amorphous content of a sample. There are several methods that may be used for this measurement and their accuracy has been assessed previously with a number of ideal, synthetic mixtures. Many samples, especially in the mineralogy sphere, are far from ideal and contain multiple phases of varying absorption contrast. This creates a microabsorption problem which affects the accuracy of the determination of both the crystalline and amorphous components. This paper assesses commonly used methods of amorphous determination with a series of synthetic samples designed to create a considerable microabsorption problem.

A strategy for qualitative X-ray phase analysis of complex multiphase solids is illustrated through the analysis of eight fixed-bed gasification ashes. Coal from the same lignite formation was gasified in three different reactors. Despite the differences in gasifiers and their operating conditions, all of the ash specimens had the same basic crystalline phase assemblage: silicates and aluminosilicates (merwinite, dicalcium silicates, melilite, nepheline, carnegieite and a sodalite structure phase), oxides (ferrite spinels, hematite and periclase), calcite and residual lignite minerals (quartz, plagioclase). The identification strategy relied on a bulk chemical analysis of each ash and used manual methods with the JCPDS-ICDD search manuals for the Powder Diffraction File. Grain picking, size separations, magnetic enrichment, separation by hardness, dissolution of water soluble phases, and further crystallization of the ash through heat treatment all figured in the identification strategy. Identification of more than a dozen minor and trace phases resulted from these additional methods. Several trials with an automated search/match system demonstrated the difficulties of analyses of such complex phase assemblages. The need for SEM characterization of the ashes to accompany the XRD analyses is discussed.

Ongoing software developments for creating three-dimensional (3D) printed crystallographic models seamlessly from Crystallographic Information Framework (CIF) data (*.cif files) are reported. Color versus monochrome printing is briefly discussed. Recommendations are made on the basis of our preliminary printing efforts. A brief outlook on new materials for 3D printing is given.

To enable mechanical milling of small (0.1–1.0 g) samples, a cylindrical grinding vessel machined from polypropylene and furnished with tungsten carbide rods has been designed and produced for use inside the conventional jar of a McCrone Micronizing Mill. The vessel is about one-seventh the volume of the conventional jar supplied by the manufacturer. The conditions of milling for both the conventional and the miniaturized-grinding assemblies were tested using quartz sand as a limiting case. The median grain sizes of the resultant powders were measured by an X-ray gravitational-sedimentation method, with contamination from the grinding media measured by Rietveld refinement and by instrumental neutron activation analysis. The use of tungsten carbide grinding elements permits rapid wet milling of a small sample to the same median grain size in about one-third of the time required by a regular sample ground in corundum. The relative contamination (by tungsten carbide on a weight basis) using the miniaturized-grinding assembly is about 6(1)% of the proportion of corundum contamination yielded by the conventional grinding assembly.

X-ray powder diffraction data for buckminsterfullerene, C60 are reported. The crystal structure is a face-centered cubic unit cell with a = 14.165 (1) Å. The reference intensity ratio (I/Icor) is 2.20.

We calculate the extended X-ray absorption fine structure by treating the ejected photoelectron as a spherical wave which expands in the lattice and is partially scattered by neighbors of the absorbing atom. The neighboring atoms are treated as point scattered and the total scattered wave is summed from the waves scattered by each atom. The fine structure is determined from the dipole transition matrix between the initial K-state and the final photoelectron state. Calculations compare favorably with experimental data.

Techniques for estimation of element levels directly in humans (noninvasive in vivo) or in samples (in vitro) from humans are reviewed. Toxic, nonessential, trace elements may cause temporary or permanent damage to various organs and tissues in humans. There is thus a need to control the concentrations. Knowledge of the relations between toxic effects and element concentration may be extracted from measurements in humans as well as in samples from humans and her environment. Applications traditionally include occupationally exposed subjects, but an increasing research area is studies of members of the general population and of patients undergoing therapy for malignant and other diseases. Most in vivo XRF studies deal with lead in bone and cadmium in kidneys. For retired lead workers, a clear association has been demonstrated between bone lead and blood lead, due to endogenous lead excretion from the skeleton. A study of mercury in vivo showed that the technique is capable of detecting mercury in heavily exposed worker’s kidneys. In vivo XRF in cancer and rheumatology patients has helped to understand how platinum and gold are retained in the human body. The newest in vivo applications include zinc in prostate gland and arsenic in skin.

Plant surfaces are mostly covered with microscopic layers of wax which exhibit characteristic morphologies, visible under high magnification. Waxes belonging to three different types were investigated. Powder data of seven natural and three recrystallised waxes as well as of two isolated compounds are presented. The mainly crystalline nature of the studied plant waxes is proved. The correlation between morphology, chemical composition, and powder patterns is discussed.

The systems PbO–Bi2O3–P2O5/As2O5/V2O5 have been studied with respect to their compounds and solid solutions. A number of new compounds, particularly with high-Bi contents were found. Most of them are structurally closely related to the CaF2 and δ-Bi2O3 structures. Several binary and ternary solid solutions with P/As/V substitutions were investigated.

Powder X-ray diffraction data are reported for La0.6Sr0.4Co1−yFeyO3 (y=0.1, 0.25, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0). The powders were prepared by thermal decomposition of metal-containing complex solutions. All compositions have rhombohedral unit cells. In hexagonal setting, the cell parameters are a=5.4388 Å, c=13.2355 Å for y=0.1; a=5.4427 Å, c=13.2542 Å for y=0.25; a=5.4530 Å, c=13.2838 Å for y=0.4; a=5.4769 Å, c=13.3175 Å for y=0.6; a=5.5057 Å, c=13.3918 Å for y=0.8; and a=5.5278 Å, c=13.4368 Å for y=1.0. The space group is probably R3c (167) for all compositions. The observed trends in the change of the pseudocubic cell parameter ac with increasing iron content can be explained in terms of substitution of Co4+ by Fe4+ when y<0.4, and substitution of Co3+ by Fe3+ when y≳0.4.

Physical and chemical analysis, X-ray astronomy and high temperature plasma diagnostics which utilize the ultrasoft X-radiations hare made evident a strong need for filling the gap in measured absorption coefficient data for the radiations between the conventional X-rays and the extreme ultraviolet. More than one hundred new coefficients have been measured in this laboratory on the gas state, atomic or molecular, containing He, C, N, 0, F, Ne, S, Cl, Ar, Kr and Xe using eleven fluorescent, characteristic wavelengths Al-Kα (8.34 A) through Be-K (113.8 A). The radiations were isolated by Bragg reflection from multilayer analyzers of the Langmuir-Blodgett type and by pulse height discriminating proportional counter intensity measurements.

Two methods may be used to measure the reference intensity ratio: (1) by measuring intensities from samples prepared by mixing the analyte and standard together in a known weight ratio and (2) measuring separately the intensities for the analyte peak and reference standard peak from pure phase preparations and by correcting the intensities with mass absorption coefficients. Both methods give identical results that are independent of the difference in mass absorption between analyte and standard. These reference intensity ratios may be universally applied to both matrix flushing and adiabatic procedures in multicomponent analysis providing that preferred orientation, microabsorption, and extinction can be eliminated or greatly minimized in the samples under analysis.