Crystalline Material Lab: X-ray Diffraction Methods
An interesting course report.
Summary
The methods of radio-crystallography are to determine the structural properties of materials at the atomic scale. The lattice space group and crystal structure can be characterised, but the nature and precision of the information obtained will depend very much on the material (solid, pasty pulverulent, polycrystalline, mono-crystalline) and adapted methods implemented. Therefore, through this experiment we explode the atomic properties of FeS2 by firstly challenged to be creative and determine how to mount a mineral crystal in a powder XRD system and then practice critical thinking in order to determine the pyrite crystal structure by its diffraction pattern. This experiment may also be generalized to crystals other than pyrite.