Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 2, 2026

X-ray Powder Diffraction in Conservation Science: Towards Routine Crystal Structure Determination of Corrosion Products on Heritage Art Objects
Published on: June 8, 2016
Topological analyses of cuprite, Cu2O, using high-energy synchrotron-radiation data
1Hamburger Synchrotronstrahlungslabor HASYLAB at Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Notkestrasse 85, D-22603 Hamburg, Germany. thomas.lippmann@desy.de.
Abstract:
Topological analyses were performed on room-temperature and low-temperature high-energy synchrotron-radiation data from cuprite, Cu(2)O, using both single-exponential and analytical functions in the multipole model. Differences between the refinements of the data sets turned out to be small and the data were found to be well suited for the analyses and for evaluations of further properties, e. g. the electrostatic potential and the Laplacian. The ionic character of the copper-oxygen bond was impressively underlined by the results. On the 'empty' tetrahedral sites, minima of the charge density were always found.

