A method of calculating the integral breadths of Debye-Scherrer lines

Abstract

It is shown that, for crystals of the cubic system, the reciprocal of the integral breadth of a Debye-Scherrer line is cos θ/λ times the volume average of the thickness of the crystal measured at right angles to the reflecting plane. The result is applied to calculate the integral breadths of reflexions from crystals having the external forms of rectangular parallelepipeds, tetrahedra, octahedra and spheres. Except for spheres, the integral breadths are a function of the indices of reflexion as well as of the size of the crystal and the angle of reflexion. For cubes the variation with indices of reflexion is about 15%.