Statistical methods and profile fitting functions in powder XRD

This work deals maily with following areas of XRD line profile analysis: In chapter II methods of precise and accurate estimation of crystallographic parameters using statistical techniques such as maximum likelyhood method & Min-Max method, have been developed and applied to extract different crystallographic parameters. In Chapter III methods were developed to ascertain which analytical function can describe an experimentally observed XRD peak best. In chapter IV short-commings of Voigt & pseudo- Voigt functions when subjected to Warren Averbach and variance method of size-strain analysis ,were discussed. In Chapter V a new method of structure refinement - an alternative to the rietveld method, was proposed and applied to powder data of tungsten oxide .This method requires no apriori assumption regarding the functional nature of observed peaks .