Project 5: Java Lauegram

© Steffen Weber, July 1997


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This applet simulates X-ray Diffraction patterns for the Laue method (transmission/backreflection mode). These Lauegrams are often very useful in determining the orientation of a crystal sample. You may index the individual reflections by clicking at them. Here only geometrical relations are considered without calculating the actual diffraction intensities. As a very crude (and not always correct) approximation you may choose the spot radius to be proportional to the spacing d, since the strongest reflections usually come from the planes with the lowest indices and the largest d-values. The calculation of the intensities is not convenient for Applets, since the user must input the contents of the asymmetric unit cell, which I consider to be cumbersome. However, I will later release a version which should be copied to your computer and run as a standalone JAVA Application. In such a case I can implement file access on your local disc so that the loading of input files with the cell contents is possible (as well as PostScript output).

NOTE: I included the search for all equivalent reflections for non-cubic systems. To do so, the actual hkl-loop runs from -2*max.order to +2*max.order (only for non-cubic case). Please keep that in mind and dont set maximum order too high, since the calculation might take considerable time. This feature is needed if one wants to obtain symmetrical patterns.