CPD News Index

3rd Canadian Powder Diffraction Workshop - University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. June 12-13, 1998.

The workshop was aimed at demonstrating the uses and methods of refining powder diffraction data collected from both X ray and neutron sources. There were 24 participants in the workshop from across North America. The speakers came from chemistry, physics and mineralogy backgrounds and had familiarity with both sources of radiation. This broad experience helped in dealing with the questions from the participants who came from a wide variety of backgrounds.

The workshop began with introductory talks by Angus Wilkinson (Georgia Tech) who gave an introduction to powder profile refinement and Bob Von Dreele (LANSCE) described profile refinement with GSAS. Later in the session more specific talks were given including an overview of "ab initio" methods for use with powder data (Angus Wilkinson), methods of quantitative phase analysis (Ron Peterson, Queen’s University), magnetic Bragg diffraction with neutrons (John Greedan, McMaster University), and the implementation of rigid body refinements in GSAS (Ian Swainson, National Research Council).

Both afternoons were taken up with practical sessions using the computer facilities of the physics department of the University of Waterloo.

The workshop registration fee was kept low so that as many people as possible could attend: $100 for students and $125 for others. This was made possible by the support of the University of Waterloo and the Canadian Institute of Neutron Scattering. A big thank you goes out to the speakers as well for their contributions. It was good to see the session so full and we hope to repeat the event in the future.

Ian Swainson (NRC) and Bruce Torrie (University of Waterloo)