Recent advances in magnetic structure determination by neutron powder diffraction

Abstract

In spite of intrinsic limitations, neutron powder diffraction is, and will still be in the future, the primary and most straightforward technique for magnetic structure determination. In this paper some recent improvements in the analysis of magnetic neutron powder diffraction data are discussed. After an introduction to the subject, the main formulas governing the analysis of the Bragg magnetic scattering are summarized and shortly discussed. Next, we discuss the method of profile fitting without a structural model to get precise integrated intensities and refine the propagation vector(s) of the magnetic structure. The simulated annealing approach for magnetic structure determination is briefly discussed and, finally, some features of the program FullProf concerning the magnetic structure refinement are presented and discussed. The different themes are illustrated with simple examples.