ADD2026 School and Conference on Analysis of Diffraction Data in Real Space

Workshop email: ADD2026@ill.fr

To register (deadline 23rd November): https://workshops.ill.fr/e/add2026

Click on the "Registration" tab and fill out the registration form. Guidance for using the Indico registration system can also be found under the “Help for Registration” tab.  Due to security procedures for entering the EPN campus, we require information about your personal ID, but rest assured that this information is kept confidential in accordance with Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The ADD2026 School and Conference aim to deepen the understanding and to further the training of the various communities working with real-space data analysis methods in neutron and x-ray diffraction.  The Fourier transformation of total-scattering diffraction data from reciprocal space into real space produces a Pair-Distribution Function (PDF) that represents a model-independent "snapshot" of the short-range atomic structure within the sample.  The PDF(r) thus probes both static and dynamic local atomic correlations (as well as local magnetic spin correlations in the case of neutron diffraction).  The measured PDF(r) can then be modelled or simulated using various software packages.  These so-called "PDF-analysis" methods are therefore complementary to the well-known Rietveld method of refining diffraction data in Q-space that however provides only a space-time averaged picture of the sample's structure.  

Although originally used to determine the short-range atomic order in liquids and glasses, PDF-analysis of total-scattering diffraction data is now increasingly applied to powder samples of partially-disordered crystals and a variety of nano-structured systems, as well as to single-crystal samples exhibiting some local atomic disorder, and most recently for short-range spin correlations in disordered or frustrated magnetic systems (in the case of neutron diffraction).  Consequently, PDF-analysis now enjoys a wide field of application to new functional materials, whose properties are often depend significantly on their local structure rather than only on their average crystallographic structure.

The scope of ADD2026 responds to this growth in PDF-analysis applications by covering both x-ray and neutron diffraction techniques that involve real-space modelling/analysis of local atomic and/or local magnetic structural correlations for samples of any morphology.  Note that we also welcome presentations and participants in the field of e-beam diffraction using real-space analysis techniques.