Coherence effects in the scattering from domain structures

Scattering techniques with x-rays or neutrons are most effective for studying domain and domain wall structures on a mesoscopic scale. For small domain sizes and small strains between adjacent domains, coherence effects can give rise to significant modifications of the scattering intensity distribution which cannot generally be neglected. Additional or missing peaks, peak shifts and peak narrowing can lead to false conclusions concerning assignments to multiple phases, lower or higher symmetries, wrong lattice constants and domain sizes, respectively. This is demonstrated by examples calculated with a simple scattering theory outlined.