Line profile analysis: pattern modelling versus profile fitting
Grain size determination is a primary issue in the study of nanocrystalline materials. The recently developed Whole Powder Pattern Modelling (WPPM) was applied to data collected on a nanocrystalline ceria sample. Unlike traditional profile fitting, WPPM makes no use of arbitrary analytical profile functions: diffraction profiles are directly modelled in terms of microstructural parameters, like, e.g., grain shape and size distribution, dislocation density, effective outer cut-off radius, faulting and anti-phase domain boundary probabilities. The results are in close agreement with those of transmission electron microscopy.
P. Scardi and M. Leoni
![[WPPM graph]](https://www.iucr.org/__data/assets/image/0017/5345/Image7.gif)
WPPM results for a nanocrystalline ceria sample. In the inset, TEM grain diameter distribution (full column) with WPPM final results (open column) and starting (prior) distribution (dashed column).
