Engineering Chemistry

20

SOLID STATE AND X-RAY DIFFRACTION

20.1 INTRODUCTION

X-ray diffraction on inorganic and organic solids is an increasingly important technique for characterisation, the interpretation of the physical and chemical properties of materials in terms of their ideal or defective atomic structure and the transfer of the acquired crystal chemical knowledge to the engineering of solid-state compounds with novel technological properties in qualitative and quantitative analysis.

Determination of crystal structure was started by Max von Laue and was followed by William Henry Bragg with his son, Lawrence. In 1915, Henry Bragg and Lawrence Bragg were awarded the Nobel Prize for their work; Lawrence remains the youngest winner ever.

Since the discovery of ...