Rietveld refinement

Rietveld refinement is a powerful mathematical technique used in crystallography to extract precise structural information from powder diffraction data. Named after Hugo Rietveld, who introduced the method in the 1960s, this approach is particularly effective for analyzing complex materials where single crystal diffraction is difficult or impossible. In powder diffraction, a sample is finely powdered, and X-ray or neutron diffraction patterns are collected.