Modelling dislocation-induced anisotropic line broadening in Rietveld refinements using a Voigt function. I. General principles

The theory of dislocation-induced X-ray or neutron diffraction line broadening developed by Krivoglaz et al. and Wilkens has been adapted for Rietveld refinement of the powder diffraction profile by fitting a Voigt function to each peak. Information on both the type of slip system and the density of dislocations in the crystallites may then be found by evaluating the shape parameter and the index-dependent breadth of the Voigt function.