Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-materials-science-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2017/paper-1/3/b/iii/solution

The indices have mixed parity, so the face-centred lattice sum vanishes: the ideal NaCl reflection is systematically absent. A smaller wavelength, a larger detector range or an extra rotation axis does not remove that extinction. A nominal peak there could reflect another wavelength/reflection, multiple diffraction, another phase or broken ideal translational symmetry; it would not be an ordinary kinematic reflection of ideal NaCl. The allowed peak is a different reciprocal-lattice vector, not a recovered peak.

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