Neutron scattering’s influence on crystallography
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Date
2015-02-03
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Australian Institute of Physics
Abstract
Picture a group of X-ray diffractionists pontificating in the Crystallography Forum; the
buffoon amongst them asks: “What has neutron diffraction done for us?”
Aside from being a poor parody of a well-known scene from a Monty Python film, this
question does contain an element of truth. In the hundred years since the discoveries of von
Laue and the Braggs, X-ray crystallography has been remarkably successful in providing
extensive and reliable tools and methods for understanding many aspects of crystal structure
and behavior. There are, of course, particular experiments where neutrons offer significant
advantages over X-rays. These advantages are well known to us all: dramatically different
dependence of the scattering factors on atomic number and isotope, no dependence of the
nuclear scattering factor on angle, larger penetration, sensitive to unpaired spins, and energies
comparable to lattice and magnetic excitations. But what has neutron scattering contributed to
the science of crystallography?
With the ringing out of 2014 as the UNESCO International Year of Crystallography, it is
timely to reflect on the various aspects of crystallography where neutrons have led the way
[1]. These aspects include the development of counter diffractometers, automation, and
electronic position-sensitive detectors, most areas of magnetism, the study of incommensurate
structures, the Rietveld method to analyse powder diffraction patterns, total pattern
refinement, powder diffraction in materials discovery, standard libraries of amino acids and
peptides, strain scanning, extreme sample environments of many forms, and operando in situ
experiments.
Potted histories of several of these aspects, especially those with connection to the neutron
scattering activities at Lucas Heights, will be presented.
Description
Keywords
Scattering, X-ray diffraction, Crystallography, Neutron diffraction, Laue method, Bragg reflection, Neutrons, Isotopes, Crystal lattices, Magnetism
Citation
McIntyre. G. J. (2015). Neutron scattering’s influence on crystallography. Paper presented at the 39th Annual Condensed Matter and Materials Meeting, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, NSW, 3 February 2015 - 6 February 2015, (pp. 69). Retrieved from: https://physics.org.au/wp-content/uploads/cmm/2015/Wagga2015_10_Handbook.pdf