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Updated: Aug 9, 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
Determination of absolute configurations of crystal structures using electron diffraction patterns by means of
1National Centre for HREM, Laboratory of Materials Science, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands.
Abstract:
A simple method is reported to determine the absolute configuration of the crystal structure from electron diffraction patterns taken from very small areas. The method is based on the differences in the Friedel reflections, which are in general much larger than for X-rays due to the dynamical behaviour of the electron scattering. We express the absolute configuration with a parameter similar to the one Flack (Acta Cryst. A 39 (1983) 876) introduced in X-ray crystallography. This parameter is added to a refinement procedure that uses a multi-slice calculation to calculate diffraction patterns. The validity and strength of the method are shown with simulated and experimental data sets of GaN in the [0 1 0]-zone and a more complex compound, Ce5Cu19P12 in the [0 0 1] zone.
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