Quantitative phase analysis

Abstract

The most common use of powder diffraction in analytical science is the identification of crystalline components, or phases, present in a sample of interest. The near universal applicability of the method for this purpose is derived from the fact that a diffraction pattern is produced directly from the components' crystal structure. However, for multi-phase samples, once the nature of phases present has been established, the next question usually asked of the diffractionist is "how much of each phase is there?" This chapter provides an overview of the basis and application of commonly used methods of quantitative phase abundance determination as well as references to the extensive literature on the subject. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.