X-Ray Diffraction Simulator

2D X-Ray Crystallography Simulator

The X-Ray Diffraction Simulator is a program developed at Carnegie Mellon using the cT programming language as an aid to teaching undergraduate courses involving crystallography. The program provides a graphical user interface to a computer simulation of x-ray powder diffraction of two-dimensional crystals. It is available at no cost for educational purposes or non-profit individual use.

Description:

The user can define an arbitrary unit cell and populate it with atoms. It is possible to display diagrams of the lattice defined by the unit cell, as well as the Ewald sphere and reciprocal lattice. Finally, the program will calculate the diffraction pattern produced by the unit cell. It is possible to specify one of the ordinary wavelengths of x-rays used in practice to be used in calculating the diffraction pattern.

To download the Macintosh version of the simulator, click here. This file is 759765 bytes long. Decode the BinHex file and expand the archive, then follow the instructions in the README file.

Since the development of this program was only possible with financial help from the CMU Courseware Committee, under the guidance of Prof. E. Steinberg, we would like to acknowledge them here. Continued improvement of this program will only be possible if financial support continues, so we welcome any kind of feedback about this program; in particular, we are looking for answers to the following questions:

In what kind of environent did you use the program ?
Did you like it ?
How would you modify the program ?
Does this program provide you with a better tool to explain diffraction ?
How many students have used it at your location ?
Would you be interested in a 3D version ?
Any other comments ?

Feedback can be sent by e-mail to Marc De Graef.