Ikaite is a metastable hexahydrate of calcium carbonate, forming in aqueous conditions near freezing conditions. Neutron powder diffraction data of synthetic deuterated ikaite, collected at seven temperatures from 4 to 270 K, were refined. The linear thermal expansion coefficients are quite anisotropic, being smaller in the direction of the C—O bond. A review of the hydrogen-bonding scheme around the (CaCO03) ion pair is given and an additional weak potential hydrogen bond is suggested. Temperature-dependent growth of the atomic displacement factors of the carbonate O1 atom agrees with the previous suggestion of a possible low-frequency, hindered librational mode of the carbonate group.

The structure of a natural sample of chondrodite (Mg4.89Fe0.07Si2.04O8F1.54(OH)0.46) was refined using powder neutron diffraction data and the Rietveld technique (P21/b; Z = 2; a = 4.7204(1)Å; b = 10.2360(3)Å; c = 7.8252(2)Å; α = 109.11(1)°; V = 357.26(2)Å3). Hydrogen was found to occupy the H1 site. The significance of hydrogen at this site is discussed in terms of hydrogen-bond stabilization of humite structures containing varying amounts of OH, F and Ti. Arguments are proposed as to why the F and Ti contents of natural humites usually result in only one H per formula unit when there is no crystal-chemical reason why fully hydrated samples should not be favoured.

Neutron diffraction (ND) was used to investigate the crystallographic preferential orientation (CPO, texture) and structure parameters of four samples of metagabro mylonite collected from the eastern part of the metagabbro sheet at the Stare Mesto belt, Bohemia Massif, Czech Republic. The samples were selected to form a deformation-ordered series with the microstructure varying from non-deformed metagabbro protolith to strongly sheared ultramylonite and amphibole-rich ulramylonite. The specimens used in ND measurements were polished in form of an exact sphere with diameter 50 ± 0.1 mm. The obtained ND patterns were corrected for non-linear background and then evaluated using the Rietveld method implemented in the software package GSAS. Data recorded from powder preparded by milling material from the sampled rocks were used to refine the structure parameters of plagioclase (labradorite structure, triclinic space group C-1) and amphibole (monoclinic space group C2/m). The experiments were performed on the KSN-2 neutron diffractometer situated at the research reactor LVR-15 of the Nuclear Research Institute, plc. Rez, Czech Republic. The data sets of ND patterns measured on each of the four spherical specimens consisted of 90 diagrams collected for different diffraction vectors covering uniformly one orientation hemisphere of the specimen. Based on the collected data, the orientation distribution function (ODF) of crystalline grains was determined by Rietveld harmonic method (coefficients C(l,m,n) of the spherical harmonics expansion determined up to the order L = 8) for the two principal mineral phases - amphibole and plagioclase. The ODF was used to reconstruct (001), (020), (021), (110), (111) (plagioclase) and (001), (11-1), (020), (110), (200) (amphibole) pole figures (PFs). Direct method of ODF calculation implemented in ResMat software package was then used to calculate inverted pole figures (IPFs) of the plagioclase phase. CPO of the amphibole and plagioclase is then discussed in terms of the obtained texture indices and calculated PFs and IPFs and compared with data measured by other methods or available in literature.

Using high resolution powder neutron diffraction data, we show that there is a distinct anomaly in the structural noncentrosymmetry around the magnetic transition point TN for bulk and nanoscale BiFeO3. It appears that the structural noncentrosymmetry - which gives rise to the ferroelectric polarization - is suppressed anomalously by ~1% (of the average noncentrosymmetry at above the magnetic transition) in the bulk sample and by ~12% in the nanoscale sample as the magnetic transition is approached from higher temperature. This observation shows that the multiferroic coupling improves in the nanoscale sample which is expected to brighten the application prospects of nanoscale BiFeO3 in nanospintronics-based sensor devices.

PACS Nos. 75.70.Cn, 75.75.-c

The crystal structure of the perovskite phase KCaF3 has been redetermined at 4.2 and 300 K using powder neutron diffraction collected at the highest resolution. At both temperatures the phase was found to be orthorhombic in space group Pnma, with lattice parameters a=0.622 879(5) nm, b=0.870 031(7) nm, c=0.611 210(5) nm at 4.2 K, and a=0.621 488(6) nm, b=0.876 360(8) nm, c=0.616 481(6) nm at 300 K. The CaF6 octahedron is regular at both temperatures with octahedral rotations of 9.6° and 13.2° for the in-phase and anti-phase tilts, respectively, at 4.2 K. No evidence was found to support the recent revision of the space group from Pnma to the monoclinic space group B21∕m.

SrBi2OB4O9 is a novel centrosymmetric borate oxide forming in the SrO–Bi2O3–B2O3 system. Its crystal structure has been determined ab initio from high-resolution X-ray and neutron powder diffraction data with the help of 11B MAS-NMR data. SrBi2OB4O9 crystallizes with a triclinic unit-cell with a=6.8657(1) Å, b=9.7976(1) Å, c=6.8148(1) Å, α=109.1270(8)°, β=101.8971(8)°, γ=96.1445(8)°, V=416.17(1) Å3, Z=2, space group P-1. Its structure consists of Bi2O4+ layers alternating along the b axis with SrB4O94− layers containing isolated B4O96− (〈2Δ〉Δ) tetraborate anions.