Ninety Years of Powder Diffraction: from Birth to Maturity

The expression “powder diffraction” denotes the phenomenon of diffraction of any electromagnetic waves or particles on polycrystalline (powdered, bulk or thin film) materials which is used in a wide variety experimental settings. The X-ray powder-diffraction method was devised and developed during the First World War (1916) by a Dutch/Swiss team, Peter Debye and Paul Scherrer, in Gottingen, Germany, and independently, marginally later, by an American, Albert W. Hull in Schenectady, USA. The birth of powder diffraction came four years after the discovery of the phenomenon of single-crystal diffraction made in 1912 by Walther Friedrich, Paul Knipping and Max Laue in Munich and developed from 1912/1913 by William Henry Bragg (father) and William Lawrence Bragg (son), and later by many others. Powder diffraction became a milestone towards an understanding of the nature of materials, especially of those which cannot be prepared in the form of suitable single crystals, and permitted rapid progress in solid state physics and chemistry. The events leading to the discovery of powder-diffraction phenomenon are briefly reviewed. The importance of synchrotron powder diffraction studies, which have developed since 1980s, is emphasised.