[Congress Report]

Uses of the Inorganic Database

H. Behrens described the new arrangements under which the ICSD is being maintained by the Fachinformationzentrum Karlruhe (Germany) with software by V. Karen (NIST, USA), and data validation by R. Allmann. S. Abrahams showed us how to find new ferroelectric materials by searching the ICSD for polar structures that are close to having a center of symmetry, and M. Berndt described how a derived database of standardized structures can be used to find compounds with similar structures.

J. Rodgers talked about the CRYSTMET file of metal structures and M. Berndt described progress with the Pauling File which contains information on the structures and properties of binary compounds and will be extended to include all inorganic and metallic compounds by 2007. The Powder Data File (PDF) has been extended by including some 40,000 new powder patterns calculated from structures in the ICSD. J. Faber showed how to search this part of the PDF for groups of compounds that shared interesting properties, and A. Hewat demonstrated his web version of the ICSD.

I. David Brown