Latin American workshop on applications of powder diffraction and mini-course on methods of powder diffraction

São Paulo, Brazil April 16-20, 2007

The more than 100 participants in the workshop and minicourse on methods of powder diffraction included researchers, young scientists and students from the USA, Canada, Colombia, Uruguay, Peru, Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina. The event included plenary lectures on the state-of-the-art in theory, computer and experimental methods given by some of the most renowned specialists in the field. Poster sessions were held every day. Most of the presentations of the Mini-Course were recorded (voice+computer screen), and are available at www.lnls.br/lawpd. Click on Recorded Lectures and chose from the following fantastic list:

Peter Stephens: Powder to the people, Andy Fitch: Experimental procedures, Jim Kaduk: Phase identification with powder diffraction, Peter Stephens: Tutorial on the physical and mathematical descriptions of powder diffraction lineshapes, Carmelo Giacovazzo: Space group determination and ab initio phasing in EXPO2007, Brian Toby: A casual introduction to least-squares fitting: A [mostly] descriptive approach, Bob Von Dreele: Refinement strategies in the Rietveld Method, and GSAS & EXPGUI and GSAS Demo: SeqGSAS & Seqplot, Juan Rodríguez-Carvajal: Introduction to magnetic structure determination and refinement using neutron powder diffraction, Simon Billinge: The Atomic Pair Distribution Function method: beyond the crystal structure, Brian Toby: Judging quality in Rietveld fits: R-factors and graphical analysis, Carmelo Giacovazzo: EXPO2007: a powerful tool for crystal structure solution and refinement from powder data, Brian Litteer: Advances in transmission powder X-ray diffraction.

This event was a great success. The Organizing committee, Chaired by Eduardo Granado (Unicamp / LNLS) did a wonderful job. The sponsorship of several institutions and commercial firms (Lab. Nacional de Luz Síncrotron (LNLS), the IUCr, the Brazilian Crystallographic Assn (ABCr), the Research Foundations of the State of São Paulo (FAPESP) and of Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG), Centro Latino Americano de Física (CLAF), the International Center for Diffraction Data (ICDD), Bruker AXS, Rigaku Corp. and Panalytical) was critical to the success of both the Workshop and the Mini-Course and is very much appreciated. A touch of originality was provided by a soccer match organized the day of a visit to the synchrotron (NSLS) between the “locals” and the “visitors”. There is no agreement as to who were the winners of this match, but the crystallographic community has no doubts that they were all winners for attending this outstanding event.

Iris Torriani and Eduardo Granado