Applications of Total Pattern Fitting to a Study of Crystallite Size and Strain in Zinc Oxide Powder

Abstract

A novel approach to the determination of crystallite size and lattice strain by means of Total Pattern Analysis is described. Parameters to define the position, magnitude, breadth and shape of individual peaks are obtained by an adaptation of the pattern fitting program of Sonneveld and Visser (J. Appl. Cryst. 8, 1–7, 1975). A rapid assessment of the nature of the specimen broadening is given by a Williamson-Hall Plot. This leads to a more detailed study of line breadths by, for example, Voigt analysis applied to several orders of reflections or to single lines. Preliminary results are given for the application of this procedure to ‘size only’ and ‘size-strain’ samples of ZnO.