Speaker
Description
Pair distribution function (PDF) analysis has become a powerful and widely used approach for investigating the local atomic structure of crystalline, nanostructured, and disordered materials beyond the limits of conventional crystallography. By combining total scattering experiments with real-space structural analysis, PDF methods provide direct insight into short-range order, local distortions, nanoscale heterogeneity, and correlated disorder that are often hidden in average-structure descriptions.
This lecture will introduce the fundamental concepts underlying PDF analysis, beginning with the principles of total scattering and the transformation of reciprocal-space data into real-space structural correlations. The discussion will cover the essential stages of a PDF study, including experimental considerations for X-ray and neutron scattering measurements, data reduction procedures, and approaches to structural modeling and refinement.
Emphasis will be placed on understanding what structural information PDF analysis can reveal, when the method is particularly advantageous, and how it complements conventional diffraction techniques. Representative examples from contemporary materials research—such as nanomaterials, functional oxides, energy materials, and disordered systems—will illustrate the broad applicability of the method and its growing role in modern structural characterization.
