Estimating the structure factors in X-ray diffraction

This article takes the concepts of the ‘new diffraction theory’ [Fewster (2014 ▸). Acta Cryst. A70, 257–282] and examines the implications for the interpretation of experimental results and the estimation of structure factors. Further experimental evidence is included to justify the conclusions in the theory, showing that the residual intensity at twice the Bragg angle is a diffraction effect and not associated with the crystal shape. This ‘enhancement’ effect is independent of whether kinematical or dynamical theories are applied and can lead to a clearer understanding of how the dynamical effects are suppressed in imperfect crystals. By applying the idea that the higher-order peaks are due to path lengths of nλ, it is shown that ‘systematically absent’ reflections in the conventional theory may not be absent. Because this new theory considers the intensity to be more distributed, it suggests that the entire structure factor can be difficult to capture by experiment. This article suggests some routes to achieve a good approximation of the structure factors for typical methods of data collection. Any measurement of intensity with background removal will exclude some of the distributed intensity, again leading to an underestimate of the structure factors, and therefore the missing intensity needs to be estimated.