Lattice parameters determination from powder diffraction data: Results from a round robin project

Abstract

A well-crystallized sample of powdered KCl has been distributed among several laboratories in order to test the reproducibility of the lattice parameter measurement on different X-ray powder diffraction instruments. The precision of the determined unit-cell dimension is in the 10−5 Å range, while the discrepancies among the results from different laboratories using the same numerical analysis are at least one order of magnitude higher. It is shown that if different numerical analyses, including full pattern refinement, are used, values differing in the third decimal digit are obtained for the same data set.