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Powder Diffraction and Rietveld Refinement School 2020

Covid-19: The 2020 school had to be cancelled due to the covid pandemic. We hope to relaunch the school in 2026. We’ve left these pages online for information.

John will be teaching on the Stuttgart course on Rietveld and PDF analysis organised by Robert Dinnebier in March/April 2025.

The 2020 Powder Diffraction and Rietveld Refinement School wil be held at the University of Durham from Sunday 29th March to Thursday 2nd of April. Lectures will be given by Jeremy Cockcroft, Andy Fitch, John Evans and Ivana Evans. There will also be small group tutorials and a large number of hands-on practical computer sessions.

Applications for places can be made using the registration link on the Rietveld Scchool menu..

Topics to be covered will include:

  • Data collection strategies for X-ray and neutron diffraction
  • Constant wavelength and time of flight diffraction
  • Modelling peak shapes
  • Indexing powder patterns
  • Rietveld, Le Bail and Pawley fitting methods
  • X-ray and neutron combined Rietveld refinement
  • Extended solids and molecular systems
  • Restrained refinements
  • Rigid body refinements

Magnetic refinements will not be explicitly covered.

The school organisers support the IUCr’s statement on gender balance. Since the school’s inception in 2000 we have striven to bring together young scientists from around the world from a range of difference scientific disciplines. The discussions amongst attendees from different cultural and scientific backgrounds gives the school a stimulating learning environment. Where possible, we ensure that the balance of delegates accepted on the school matches that of suitably-qualified applicants, and typically have approximately 50% female delegates attending.

Accommodation will be at Collingwood College Durham, lectures will be at Trevelyan College and computer classes near the Chemistry Department. Durham is on the fast east coast rail track. London is ~2.75 hours and Edinburgh 2 hours. There are a number of cheap flights to Newcastle Airport (e.g. flybe to Exeter/Southampton; Easy Jet to Bristol/Stanstead/Geneva/Nice, etc). More travel information can be found here.

For more information please email [email protected].

If your company would like to sponsor the school please contact us.