The intrinsic group–subgroup structures of the Diamond and Gyroid minimal surfaces in their conventional unit cells

The intrinsic, hyperbolic crystallography of the Diamond and Gyroid minimal surfaces in their conventional unit cells is introduced and analysed. Tables are constructed of symmetry subgroups commensurate with the translational symmetries of the surfaces as well as group–subgroup lattice graphs.

Chiral spiral cyclic twins

A formula is presented for the generation of chiral m-fold multiply twinned two-dimensional point sets of even twin modulus m > 6 from an integer inclination sequence; in particular, it is discussed for the first three non-degenerate cases m = 8, 10, 12, which share a connection to the aperiodic crystallography of axial quasicrystals exhibiting octagonal, decagonal and dodecagonal long-range orientational order and symmetry.

A new method for lattice reduction using directional and hyperplanar shearing

A geometric method of lattice reduction based on cycles of directional and hyperplanar shears is presented. The deviation from cubicity at each step of the reduction is evaluated by a parameter called `basis rhombicity' which is the sum of the absolute values of the elements of the metric tensor associated with the basis. The levels of reduction are quite similar to those obtained with the Lenstra–Lenstra–Lovász (LLL) algorithm, at least up to the moderate dimensions that have been tested (lower than 20). The method can be used to reduce unit cells attached to given hyperplanes.

On the frequency module of the hull of a primitive substitution tiling

Understanding the properties of tilings is of increasing relevance to the study of aperiodic tilings and tiling spaces. This work considers the statistical properties of the hull of a primitive substitution tiling, where the hull is the family of all substitution tilings with respect to the substitution. A method is presented on how to arrive at the frequency module of the hull of a primitive substitution tiling (the minimal {\bb Z}-module, where {\bb Z} is the set of integers) containing the absolute frequency of each of its patches. The method involves deriving the tiling's edge types and vertex stars; in the process, a new substitution is introduced on a reconstructed set of prototiles.

Effects of Voigt diffraction peak profiles on the pair distribution function

Powder diffraction and pair distribution function (PDF) analysis are well established techniques for investigation of atomic configurations in crystalline materials, and the two are related by a Fourier transformation. In diffraction experiments, structural information, such as crystallite size and microstrain, is contained within the peak profile function of the diffraction peaks. However, the effects of the PXRD (powder X-ray diffraction) peak profile function on the PDF are not fully understood. Here, all the effects from a Voigt diffraction peak profile are solved analytically, and verified experimentally through a high-quality X-ray total scattering measurement on Ni powder. The Lorentzian contribution to the microstrain broadening is found to result in Voigt-shaped PDF peaks. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that an improper description of the Voigt shape during model refinement leads to overestimation of the atomic displacement parameter.

Report of the Executive Committee for 2020

The report of the Executive Committee for 2020 is presented.

Parameterization of magnetic vector potentials and fields for efficient multislice calculations of elastic electron scattering

The multislice method, which simulates the propagation of the incident electron wavefunction through a crystal, is a well established method for analysing the multiple scattering effects that an electron beam may undergo. The inclusion of magnetic effects into this method proves crucial towards simulating enhanced magnetic interaction of vortex beams with magnetic materials, calculating magnetic Bragg spots or searching for magnon signatures, to name a few examples. Inclusion of magnetism poses novel challenges to the efficiency of the multislice method for larger systems, especially regarding the consistent computation of magnetic vector potentials A and magnetic fields B over large supercells. This work presents a tabulation of parameterized magnetic (PM) values for the first three rows of transition metal elements computed from atomic density functional theory (DFT) calculations, allowing for the efficient computation of approximate A and B across large crystals using only structural and magnetic moment size and direction information. Ferromagnetic b.c.c. (body-centred cubic) Fe and tetragonal FePt are chosen to showcase the performance of PM values versus directly obtaining A and B from the unit-cell spin density by DFT. The magnetic fields of b.c.c. Fe are well described by the PM approach while for FePt the PM approach is less accurate due to deformations in the spin density. Calculations of the magnetic signal, namely the change due to A and B of the intensity of diffraction patterns, show that the PM approach for both b.c.c. Fe and FePt is able to describe the effects of magnetism in these systems to a good degree of accuracy.