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We demonstrate a strategy for simulating wide-range X-ray scattering patterns, which spans the small- and wide scattering angles as well as the scattering angles typically used for Pair Distribution Function (PDF) analysis. Such simulated patterns can be used to test holistic analysis models, and, since the diffraction intensity is on the same scale as the scattering intensity, may offer a novel pathway for determining the degree of crystallinity. The "Ultima Ratio" strategy is demonstrated on a 64-nm Metal Organic Framework (MOF) particle, calculated from Q < 0.01 1/nm up to Q < 150 1/nm, with a resolution of 0.16 Angstrom. The computations exploit a modified 3D Fast Fourier Transform (3D-FFT), whose modifications enable the transformations of matrices at least up to 8000^3 voxels in size. Multiple of these modified 3D-FFTs are combined to improve the low-Q behaviour. The resulting curve is compared to a wide-range scattering pattern measured on a polydisperse MOF powder. While computationally intensive, the approach is expected to be useful for simulating scattering from a wide range of realistic, complex structures, from (poly-)crystalline particles to hierarchical, multicomponent structures such as viruses and catalysts., Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures. VASP Datasets and jupyter notebook available from Zenodo: https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7764045

A Round Robin study has been carried out to estimate the impact of the human element in small-angle scattering data analysis. Four corrected datasets were provided to participants ready for analysis. All datasets were measured on samples containing spherical scatterers, with two datasets in dilute dispersions, and two from powders. Most of the 46 participants correctly identified the number of populations in the dilute dispersions, with half of the population mean entries within 1.5% and half of the population width entries within 40%, respectively. Due to the added complexity of the structure factor, much fewer people submitted answers on the powder datasets. For those that did, half of the entries for the means and widths were within 44% and 86% respectively. This Round Robin experiment highlights several causes for the discrepancies, for which solutions are proposed., Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures. For the original information sent to RR participants, see https://zenodo.org/record/7506365 . For the anonymized results and Jupyter notebook for analysis, see https://zenodo.org/record/7509710

Metal nanoparticles have a substantial impact across different fields of science, such as photochemistry, energy conversion, and medicine. Among the commonly used nanoparticles, silver nanoparticles are of special interest due to their antibacterial properties and applications in sensing and catalysis. However, many of the methods used to synthesize silver nanoparticles often do not result in well-defined products, the main obstacles being high polydispersity or a lack of particle size tunability. We describe an automated approach to on-demand synthesis of adjustable particles with mean radii of 3 and 5 nm using the polyol route. The polyol process is a promising route for silver nanoparticles e.g., to be used as reference materials. We characterised the as-synthesized nanoparticles using small-angle X-ray scattering, dynamic light scattering and further methods, showing that automated synthesis can yield colloids with reproducible and tuneable properties., Comment: Main text pages 1-16; SI pages 17-22; All the supporting files not, which are not included in this pre-print can be downloaded from here: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5910614

In recent years, we have come to appreciate the astounding intricacy of the formation process of minerals from ions in aqueous solutions. In this context, a number of studies have revealed that nucleation in the calcium sulfate system is non-classical, involving the aggregation and reorganization of nanosized prenucleation particles. In a recent work we have shown that this particle-mediated nucleation pathway is actually imprinted in the resultant single micron-sized CaSO4 crystals. This property of CaSO4 minerals provides us with an unique opportunity to search for evidence of non-classical nucleation pathways in geological environments. In particular, we focused on the quintessential single crystals of anhydrite extracted from the Naica mine in Mexico. We elucidated the growth history from this mineral sample by mapping growth defects at different length scales. Based on these data we argue that the nano-scale misalignment of the structural sub-units observed in the initial calcium sulfate crystal seed propagate through different length-scales both in morphological, as well as strictly crystallographic aspects, eventually causing the formation of large mesostructured single crystals of anhydrite. Hence, the nanoparticle mediated nucleation mechanism introduces a 'seed of imperfection', which leads to a macroscopic single crystal, in which its fragments do not fit together at different length-scales in a self-similar manner. Consequently, anisotropic voids of various sizes are formed with very well-defined walls/edges. But, at the same time the material retains its essential single crystal nature. These findings shed new light on the longstanding concept of crystal structure., Comment: The dataset and SI files are published here: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4943234