Simulating the diffraction line profile from nanocrystalline powders using a spherical harmonics expansion.

An accurate description of the diffraction line profile from nanocrystalline powders can be obtained by a spherical harmonics expansion of the profile function. The procedure outlined in this work is found to be computationally efficient and applicable to the line profile for any crystallite shape and size. Practical examples of the diffraction pattern peak profiles resulting from cubic crystallites between 1 and 100 nm in size are shown.