Powder diffraction characterization of stacking disorder

Different approaches used to analyze stacking disorder by powder diffraction will be reviewed. Some early treatments although general in its mathematical formulation were forced to make strong simplifying assumptions to make their applicability feasible without computer resources. In the most used, approaches, a model of layer interaction is assumed and approximate analytical expressions are. Other developments include the use of Monte Carlo procedures where crystals are “grown” in the computer and diffraction patterns simulated. Other recent approaches return to the general equations of diffraction for a layer structure as a starting point for computer simulations. Finally, other authors have explored the possibility of extracting the stacking information directly from the diffraction data taking into account that the diffraction pattern can be described by a Fourier.