Co-Chairs : Wendy Queen, Mark Senn

 

Functional materials are essential to modern society because their specific, tailormade properties allow to address specific technological challenges in areas such as electronics, environment or healthcare. This symposium will welcome contributions that investigate the structural variations which govern the material’s response to external stimuli, and the resulting potential applications, in a wide range of solid-state systems such as polymers, molecular crystals, semiconductors, inorganic compounds, biological materials, intermetallics, etc. The discussed structure-property functions in this symposium may relate to the electronic, magnetic, optic or mechanical response of a material, its chemical response to guest molecules and the related gas separation/adsorption/conversion properties or its applications in biotech or medicine.

Co-Chairs : Catherine Dejoie, Jean-Noël Chotard

 

This microsymposium will showcase advancements and applications of structural methods designed to understand materials under relevant operating conditions, while tracking dynamic changes in non-ambient environments. The session will focus on both methodological and instrumental innovations that facilitate the capture of structural information in real-time and under challenging conditions. Presentations will highlight the design and implementation of advanced experimental setups, custom sample environments, and state-of-the-art facilities that enable researchers to investigate complex and dynamic systems. Additionally, MS02 will focus on the analytical challenges posed by the complex datasets generated by these experiments. Contributions may include strategies for data processing, modelling, and interpretation to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the materials' structure.

Co-Chairs : Paula Abdala, Federica Bertolotti

 

Understanding the structure of materials at different length scales is fundamental to elucidating their properties, functions, and formation mechanisms. This microsymposium will focus on advanced methodologies that employ total scattering and/or X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) to investigate short-range order in materials. Particular emphasis will be placed on studies that demonstrate how these techniques allow the retrieval of precise atomic-scale details, especially in systems where conventional crystallographic approaches are insufficient. These include nanocrystals, bulk materials exhibiting local deviations from the average structure, and complex materials for which elemental speciation should be untangled.  

Co-Chairs : Phoebe Allan, David Wragg

 

The symposium will focus on advancements in the development and understanding of materials for energy storage and conversion using powder diffraction. The contribution of powder diffraction methods should be at the centre of the submitted abstracts. The symposium will cover both material-specific cases and novel methodological developments. Abstracts on all types of energy storage or conversion are welcome.

Co-Chairs : Robert Dinnebier, Arnt Kern 

 

Powder diffraction is the most widely used diffraction technique in research, both fundamental and, especially, Industrial. Across the fields of applied and research applications, there are shared interests regarding instrumental and specialised solutions. This microsymposium will focus on technical and methodological developments in powder diffraction methods, including advances in sample preparation, ease of operation, reproducibility and standardization, data collection, improved detection, data quality and data analysis. 

Co-Chairs : Ann-Christin Dippel, Jonathan de Roo

 

Nanoparticles or nanometric thin films host interesting properties that arise from surface effects or confinement. The characterisation of such systems requires very specific analytical tools and methodologies. This symposium is dedicated to the X-ray scattering techniques employed to study the structure at the nanoscale, and the properties of such systems, including small-angle, wide-angle, grazing angle and total scattering studies. Contributions may discuss methodological approaches, or case studies where these tools are employed to solve the nanostructure or to obtain mechanistic insight in the formation of the nanostructures.

Co-Chairs : Irene Margiolaki, Arnaud Grandeury

 

Diffraction-based techniques have long been fundamental to the characterization of pharmaceutical and biological materials. Today, the growing diversity and complexity of therapeutic modalities, ranging from small molecules and biologics to emerging entities such as RNA-based drugs and antibody–drug conjugates, demand advanced structural and analytical approaches to elucidate their properties both as active substances and within formulated products.

Modern diffraction and scattering methods offer powerful and complementary tools to address these challenges. X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD) extends beyond phase identification to enable quantitative phase analysis, microstructural characterization, and even structure determination from powders. Electron diffraction and small-angle scattering (SAXS/SANS) provide critical insights into nanoscale organization, aggregation behavior, and structural dynamics of pharmaceutical and biological systems.

This microsymposium will bring together researchers working at the interface of crystallography, pharmaceutical sciences, and biology. Contributions will highlight methodological advances, innovative applications, and case studies demonstrating how diffraction and scattering techniques together drive progress in drug design, development, and formulation.

Co-Chairs : Mogens Christensen, Romain Sibille

 

This microsymposium will be dedicated to all aspects of the research involving neutron diffraction and scattering, across all areas of materials science and beyond. It will range from the methodological advances through reports on interesting structures to their applications. For the development of new materials, the knowledge of fundamental properties from the atomic to the mesoscale structure is of crucial importance in many areas of today's technologies. The function of integrated materials widely depends on the crystalline structure and modifications of that structure during application. All types of studies using neutrons are welcomed such as light elements localization, magnetic scattering, scattering contrast enhancement e.g. for material systems in biomedical applications, small angle scattering etc. 

Co-Chairs : Antonia Neels, Paolo Mazzeo

 

Recent advances in instrumentation technology and data analysis methods have made powder diffraction and scattering techniques a powerful tool for studying complex systems in materials chemistry, environmental science, and biomedical research. It enables three-dimensional reconstructions from crystallography-based information and can be combined very productively with spectroscopy methods, such as Raman and NMR, as well as various imaging techniques, computational methodologies, and techniques for thermal analysis, etc. This micro-symposium will highlight the interplay of powder diffraction methods with complementary analytical tools to gain detailed under-standing of complex structural processes in realistic settings. The emphasis will be on augmented information benefiting from the combination of synergistic analytical methods for tackling structural problems in chemistry, materials science and biology.

Co-Chairs : Sebastian Bette, Milan Dopita

 

This symposium serves as a forum for discussing current developments in microstructure characterization of materials. Both methodological and materials-focused contributions are welcome. Microstructure (or real structure) refers to any deviation from an ideal infinite, periodic crystal, including lattice defects,  induced local deformation and stress, coherent domain size, preferred orientation of crystallites - texture, macro-stress, and related features. All types of inorganic and organic bulk and powder materials, thin films, and interfaces are appropriate topics. Relevant analytical approaches include diffraction line profile analysis, single-crystal-like diffraction analysis of a multi-grain sample, imaging techniques etc.

Co-Chairs : Rosanna Rizzi, Simon Billinge

 

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are increasingly integrated into all stages of powder diffraction experiments, from data acquisition to analysis and interpretation. This microsymposium will showcase recent advances in applying AI, including classical machine learning, expert systems, and emerging deep learning architectures, to optimize data collection strategies, automate routine analyses, and improve the reliability and speed of structure modeling. Contributions highlighting methodological innovations and practical implementations in experimental and computational powder diffraction are encouraged.

Co-Chairs : Malgorzata Makowska, Jonathan Wright

This microsymposium is dedicated to technical and instrumental developments for powder diffraction at large scale facilities, such as synchrotrons, free-electron lasers and neutron sources. It focuses on cutting edge developments for ultra-fast powder diffraction and extreme conditions, such as pressure or temperature. The topic will be including on one hand examples of infrastructure developments at the facilities themselves, on the other hand will be dealing with speciality sample environments and chambers enabling such extreme conditions.