A Century of Powder Diffraction: a Brief History

作者：Etter Martin; Dinnebier Robert E^*

来源：Zeitschrift fur Anorganische und Allgemeine Chemie, 2014, 640(15): 3015-3028.

DOI：10.1002/zaac.201400526

• Powder diffraction
• History of science
• Debye
• Scherrer
• Hull
• Rietveld
• X-ray diffraction
• Neutron diffraction
• Crystallography

Almost a century has passed since the pioneering work of Debye, Scherrer, and Hull and their first powder X-ray diffraction experiments in 1916/17. Although these pioneers and many others discovered most of the fundamental concepts in the field of powder diffraction within the first few years, nobody at that time could foresee the development of the computer and its calculating power in the 21st century. The general availability of computing power changed the field of powder diffraction, as Hugo Rietveld showed with his computer-assisted whole powder pattern fitting concept around fifty years after the first powder diffraction patterns were observed. Nowadays, much more complex algorithms are used to solve and identify crystal structures from powders. The intention of this historical review is to show some of the most important developments from the viewpoint of the authors in the field of powder diffraction in the last century, from the beginnings of the first transmission experiments and the determination of simple cubic crystal structures to the techniques of today allowing for the refinement of thousands of atoms within one unit cell.

• 出版日期2014-12