Rietveld in 100 picoseconds.

Brian H Toby

doi:10.1107/s1600576721000704

Abstract

A recent article by Von Dreele, Clarke & Walsh [J. Appl. Cryst. (2021), 54, https://doi.org/10.1107/S1600576720014624] introduces an entirely new paradigm in structure determination, where a complete structural measurement is made in a tenth of a nanosecond.

Highlights

The X-ray spectrum from the DCS pink-beam monochromator is somewhat complex and one might expect this would limit the analysis of diffraction data sets only to a qualitative level of analysis
Von Dreele et al (2021) show that quantitative Rietveld (1969) fitting to these data is possible, allowing full structural determination up to the limits allowed by the relatively poor peak resolution and signal-to-noise ratio offered by the technique
Peak resolution and sensitivity will tend to limit the complexity of models that can be developed, but working around this is not a new problem in powder diffraction (International Tables for Crystallography, 2019)

Summary

Introduction

The X-ray spectrum from the DCS pink-beam monochromator is somewhat complex and one might expect this would limit the analysis of diffraction data sets only to a qualitative level of analysis. Von Dreele et al (2021) show that quantitative Rietveld (1969) fitting to these data is possible, allowing full structural determination up to the limits allowed by the relatively poor peak resolution and signal-to-noise ratio offered by the technique.

Results

Conclusion