Structural Characterization of Crystalline and Non-crystalline Materials — A Brief Background of Current Requirements

Abstract

The X-ray powder diffraction technique is a well-established and widely used method for both qualitative and quantitative analysis of various substances in a variety of states (see, for example, [1]). However, in a multi-component mixture with a relatively complicated chemical composition, we frequently find difficulty in identifying the individual chemical constituents by the conventional X-ray powder diffraction method. There are also generally insufficient differences in the X-ray diffraction intensities for two elements of nearly the same atomic number in the periodic table. For example, this is certainly the case for a mixture of copper sulfide and ferrite components in the products of a copper smelting process.