Multigrain Workshop 2016

With the developments in micro-beam technology many traditional high-pressure powder samples may contain only tens or hundreds of multiple grains, displaying “spotty” poor powder patterns in diffraction images. As a result, polycrystalline structural refinement for ultrahigh-pressure samples becomes increasingly difficult and the results could be uncertain. On the other hand, successful examples of growth and preservation of micron-sized single crystal samples above 100 GPa are challenging and extremely rare. The recently developed “multigrain crystallography” treats multiple grains as a collection of single crystallites, obtaining diffraction data from a few to hundreds of single crystallites simultaneously. The multigrain approach provides great promise for structure refinement of miniature samples at ultrahigh pressures. This workshop will bring scientists from multiple disciplinary fields to (1) discuss the current status of multigrain crystallography, (2) review the currently used algorithms and various experimental procedures at synchrotron facilities, and (3) identify the challenges and opportunities of multigrain crystallography in high pressure research. Both the diffraction techniques using monochromatic and polychromatic beams will be discussed in this two-day forum.