Structure determination of molecular materials from powder diffraction data

Many solids can be prepared only as microcrystalline powders and are not suitable for structural characterization by single crystal diffraction techniques. In such cases, it is necessary to carry out structure determination using powder diffraction data. There has been considerable recent interest in this field, and considerable progress has been achieved both in the development of new techniques and in the application of these techniques to tackle a wide range of structural problems. This article highlights recent developments of techniques in this field, and their application in the field of molecular solid state chemistry. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.