English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

This special issue contains a collection of papers reflecting the content of the fifth workshop on reverse Monte Carlo (RMC) methods, held in a hotel on the banks of the Danube in the Budapest suburbs in the autumn of 2012. Over fifty participants gathered to hear talks and discuss a broad range of science based on the RMC technique in very convivial surroundings. Reverse Monte Carlo modelling is a method for producing three-dimensional disordered structural models in quantitative agreement with experimental data. The method was developed in the late 1980s and has since achieved wide acceptance within the scientific community [1], producing an average of over 90 papers and 1200 citations per year over the last five years. It is particularly suitable for the study of the structures of liquid and amorphous materials, as well as the structural analysis of disordered crystalline systems. The principal experimental data that are modelled are obtained from total x-ray or neutron scattering experiments, using the reciprocal space structure factor and/or the real space pair distribution function (PDF). Additional data might be included from extended x-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy (EXAFS), Bragg peak intensities or indeed any measured data that can be calculated from a three-dimensional atomistic model. It is this use of total scattering (diffuse and Bragg), rather than just the Bragg peak intensities more commonly used for crystalline structure analysis, which enables RMC modelling to probe the often important deviations from the average crystal structure, to probe the structures of poorly crystalline or nanocrystalline materials, and the local structures of non-crystalline materials where only diffuse scattering is observed. This flexibility across various condensed matter structure-types has made the RMC method very attractive in a wide range of disciplines, as borne out in the contents of this special issue. It is however important to point out that since the method is akin to a structural refinement method (albeit with some inbuilt Monte Carlo 'randomness'), high-quality data are needed to yield the best structural models. In this regard it is particularly pleasing to see the continued (planned and actual) growth in diffractometers at neutron and synchrotron x-ray facilities that have been designed with total scattering in mind. Since the previous RMC workshop in 2009 [2] (and indeed the earlier workshops in 2006 [3] and 2003 [4]) there have been several developments in the technique and in the range of its application. It is good to see that the program RMCProfile [5] is now being used as a refinement tool in a wide range of crystalline materials spanning molecular crystals, proton conductors and spinels. This is one of the growth areas in recent years; crystalline supercell models are constructed by replicating the average unit cell contents and the atoms are then relaxed using the RMC method to fit the data, while maintaining appropriate atom connectivity. This refined supercell is then investigated to determine how the average structure has changed to accommodate defects, local distortions, molecular rotations etc. There have also been technical developments to enhance the total scattering and RMC method as seen in the papers on new ways to process x-ray total scattering data, on the analysis of molecular liquid structures using a new version of RMC_POT [6], the program SPINVERT for determining disordered magnetic structures from magnetic diffuse scattering and papers concerned with other algorithmic improvements. These are all in addition to some excellent papers on the structures of amorphous materials, liquids and solutions using more established RMC methods. Many of the papers have been written by RMC workshop participants. We are pleased that the workshop enabled students and other young researchers to gain a deeper understanding of the RMC method at the start of their scientific careers. It is our hope that the collection of research papers within this special issue will communicate the vibrancy of this field to the wider scientific community by showing the current 'state of the art' research opportunities using the RMC method. Furthermore, by including a small number of papers from colleagues working on similar disordered problems with complementary analysis techniques, we hope that the RMC method may be placed in a broader scientific context. Acknowledgments We are very grateful to IOP Publishing for their willingness to publish this collection of papers which celebrates the 24th anniversary of the first RMC publication in a special issue of Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter and for their co-ordination during the refereeing process. References [1] McGreevy R L 2001 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 13 R877 [2] Keen D A and Pusztai L (ed) 2010 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 22 (Special issue on the first 21 years of reverse Monte Carlo modelling) [3] Keen D A and Pusztai L (ed) 2007 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 19 (Special issue on the first eighteen years of reverse Monte Carlo modelling) [4] Keen D A, Pusztai L and Dove M T (ed) 2005 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 17 (Special issue on the first fifteen years of reverse Monte Carlo modelling) [5] Tucker M G, Keen D A, Dove M T, Goodwin A L and Hui Q 2007 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 19 335218 [6] Gereben O and Pusztai L 2012 J. Comput. Chem. 33 2285 Reverse Monte Carlo modelling The First 24 Years of Reverse Monte Carlo Modelling, Budapest, Hungary, 20–22 September 2012David A Keen and Laszlo Pusztai Conformational analysis of bis(methylthio)methane and diethyl sulfide molecules in the liquid phase: reverse Monte Carlo studies using classical interatomic potential functionsOrsolya Gereben and Laszlo Pusztai Towards a robust ad hoc data correction approach that yields reliable atomic pair distribution functions from powder diffraction dataSimon J L Billinge and Christopher L Farrow The atomic scale structure of CXV carbon: wide-angle x-ray scattering and modeling studiesL Hawelek, A Brodka, J C Dore, V Honkimaki and A Burian Local structure correlations in plastic cyclohexane—a reverse Monte Carlo studyNicholas P Funnell, Martin T Dove, Andrew L Goodwin, Simon Parsons and Matthew G Tucker Neutron powder diffraction and molecular dynamics study of superionic SrBr2S Hull, S T Norberg, S G Eriksson and C E Mohn Atomic order and cluster energetics of a 17 wt% Si-based glass versus the liquid phaseG S E Antipas, L Temleitner, K Karalis, L Pusztai and A Xenidis Total scattering analysis of cation coordination and vacancy pair distribution in Yb substituted Ō-Bi2O3G S E Antipas, L Temleitner, K Karalis, L Pusztai and A Xenidis Modification of the sampling algorithm for reverse Monte Carlo modeling with an insufficient data setSatoshi Sato and Kenji Maruyama The origin of diffuse scattering in crystalline carbon tetraiodideTemleitner and L Pusztai Silver environment and covalent network rearrangement in GeS3–Ag glassesL Ratkai, I Kaban, T Wagner, J Kolar, S Valkova, Iva Voleska, B Beuneu and P Jovari Reverse Monte Carlo study of spherical sample under non-periodic boundary conditions: the structure of Ru nanoparticles based on x-ray diffraction dataOrsolya Gereben and Valeri Petkov Total neutron scattering investigation of the structure of a cobalt gallium oxide spinel prepared by solvothermal oxidation of gallium metalHelen Y Playford, Alex C Hannon, Matthew G Tucker, Martin R Lees and Richard I Walton The structure of water in solutions containing di- and trivalent cations by empirical potential structure refinementDaniel T Bowron and Sofia Diaz Moreno The proton conducting electrolyte BaTi0.5In0.5O2.75: determination of the deuteron site and its local environmentStefan T Norberg, Seikh M H Rahman, Stephen Hull, Christopher S Knee and Sten G Eriksson Acidic properties of aqueous phosphoric acid solutions: a microscopic viewI Harsanyi, L Pusztai, P Jovari and B Beuneu Comparison of the atomic level structure of the plastic crystalline and liquid phases of CBr2Cl2: neutron diffraction and reverse Monte Carlo modellingSzilvia Pothoczki1, Laszlo Temleitner, Luis Carlos Pardo, Gabriel Julio Cuello, Muriel Rovira-Esteva and Josep Lluis Tamarit Insights into the determination of molecular structure from diffraction data using a Bayesian algorithmA Henao, M Rovira-Esteva, A Vispa, J Ll Tamarit, E Guardia and L C Pardo Nanostructure determination from the pair distribution function: a parametric study of the INVERT approachMatthew J Cliffe and Andrew L Goodwin Empirical potential structure refinement of semi-crystalline polymer systems: polytetrafluoroethylene and polychlorotrifluoroethyleneA K Soper, K Page and A Llobet spinvert: a program for refinement of paramagnetic diffuse scattering dataJoseph A M Paddison, J Ross Stewart and Andrew L Goodwin Inter-molecular correlations in liquid Se2Br2Hironori Shimakura, Yukinobu Kawakita, Koji Ohara, Laszlo Pusztai, Yuiko Wakisaka and Shin'ichi Takeda RMCgui: a new interface for the workflow associated with running Reverse Monte Carlo simulationsMartin T Dove and Gary Rigg