Revealing crystal structures robotically
TSUKUBA, Japan, Dec 2, 2022 - (ACN Newswire via SEAPRWire.com) - Researchers at the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) in Japan have automated a complex and labour-intensive process for analysing the results of X-ray diffraction studies, which are used to determine the structure of crystalline materials. The team described the development and application of their technique in the journal Science and Technology of Advanced Materials: Methods.By combining machine learning with robotic process automation, researchers automated a mathematical procedure that determines the structure of crystalline materials. (Credit: ktsdesign/123rf)X-rays fired at a crystal interact with the geometric arrangement of its particles and are diffracted in many directions in a complex pattern of rays that depends on the crystal's precise structure. Experts analyse the pattern and intensity of the diffracted X-rays to determine the crystal's internal arrangement. This is a powerful and widely used process for revealing the three-dimensional atomic structure of new materials.A well-established mathematical procedure, called Rietveld analysis, is used for interpreting X-ray diffraction data, but i...
