Discovering planar disorder in close-packed structures from x-ray diffraction: Beyond the fault model Dowman P. Varn Santa Fe Institute Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Tennessee, Knoxville Geoffrey S. Canright Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Tennessee, Knoxville Telenor Research and Development James P. Crutchfield Santa Fe Institute Abstract: We solve a longstanding problem---determining structural information for disordered materials from their diffraction spectra---for the case of planar disorder in close-packed structures (CPSs). Our solution offers the most complete possible statistical description of the disorder, and, from it, we find the minimum effective range for the interlayer interaction in CPSs. We also compare our model of disorder with the so-called fault model (FM) and demonstrate that in simple cases our approach reduces to the FM, but in cases that are more complex it provides a general and more accurate structural description than the FM. We demonstrate our technique on two previously published zinc sulphide diffraction spectra and find that the minimum effective interlayer-interaction range is larger than that calculated from first principles. A copy of this paper in pdf format: Discovering planar disorder in close-packed structures from x-ray diffraction: Beyond the fault model Publisher's web site: Physical Review B Citation: D.P. Varn, G.S. Canright and J.P. Crutchfield, Phys. Rev. B. 66 (2002) 174110. Referee Reports