CPDW17 (in 2024)

The 17th Canadian Powder Diffraction Workshop 

May 3 – 6, 2024 in Windsor, ON, Canada

Welcome to the 17th Canadian Powder Diffraction Workshop! This year CPDW will be held May 3-6 at the University of Windsor, Ontario. The program of CPDW17 was purposefully designed to combine diffraction and crystallography theory together with practical applications in an intuitive and progressive way that will build over the course of the workshop.

The first two days of the workshop will be focused on the art of structure solution from powder diffraction. The attendees will learn about symmetry, crystal classes and space groups and their roles in the identification of crystal structure from powder pattern. The analogies between powder diffraction and single crystal techniques will be drawn and the common challenges will be highlighted. The third day will concentrate on essential methods for phase identification and quantitative analysis of complex mixtures.  Attendees will acquire skills in navigating structural databases and usage of cluster analysis while dealing with large arrays of powder patterns.

The workshop is targeted towards students, post-doctoral fellows and practitioners who would benefit from an improved understanding of the basic and some advanced concepts of powder x-ray diffraction. CPDW17 incorporates various teaching methodologies, including hands-on exercises, interactive discussions, and practical demonstrations. This ensures that participants not only absorb theoretical knowledge but also gain practical skills applicable to their research and professional pursuits.

This year, we invited speakers from renowned diffraction companies and facilities such as Bruker, Proto, Malvern Panalytical, Canadian Light Source, Argonne National Laboratory and International Centre for Diffraction Data (ICDD). Participants are invited to bring one or two problems of their own research to be worked on at the workshop with expert advice from speakers and instructors.

CPDW17 will cover use of the following software packages: EVA, TOPAS, HighScorePlus, PDAnalysis, MDI JADE, GSAS-II, FULLPROF (DICVOL, TREOR, ITO), FOX, EXPO, DIOPTAS, OpenBABEL, Avogadro, CCDC: Mogul, PDF structural database.