Conference Report: ACCURACY IN POWDER DIFFRACTION II: A REPORT ON THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE Gaithersburg, MD May 26–29, 1992

The purpose of this conference was to assess the progress that has been made in the theory, techniques, and applications of powder diffraction data since the first highly successful symposium on Accuracy in Powder Diffraction held at NIST (then the National Bureau of Standards) in 1979, as well as to define problem areas where further work is needed. The proceedings of the first symposium, published as Accuracy in Powder Diffraction (NBS Special Publication 567), have been widely cited in the literature, testifying to their importance as resources for active researchers in powder diffraction. However, the 13 intervening years have seen further major advances in the practice of this technique. This conference was organized by the Commission on Powder Diffraction of the International Union of Crystallography (lUCr), and was sponsored jointly by NIST, the lUCr, and the JCPDSInternational Centre for Diffraction Data (ICDD). The meeting was attended by 177 registrants, representing 18 countries and five continents. The international program committee, chaired by R. J. Hill (CSIRO, Australia), selected the 26 invited speakers, and another 11 oral presentations were chosen from the 70 contributed abstracts. The program was divided into six topics: phase identification and quantification; accuracy and standards; new developments in software and data analysis; profile fitting, decomposition, and microstructural effects; novel applications and structural science; and new developments in hardware, including detectors, and studies under non-ambient and time-resolved conditions. The program for the last session was designed to interface smoothly with the Workshop on X-Ray and Neutron Diffraction at High Pressure, organized by the High Pressure Group of the lUCr, which was held immediately after the conference at the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, DC. In addition, two tutorial workshops, organized by the ICDD, were conducted as part of the conference, one on powder diffractometer sensitivity and one on indexing methods. The sessions opened with a tribute to the late William Parrish detailing his contributions to powder diffraction, delivered by T. C. Huang of IBM. Bill Parrish was responsible for developing many of the instruments and analytical methods that are used for powder diffraction analysis; his pioneering efforts will make possible even further advances.