A detailed description of the technical specifications of beamline P21.1 at the PETRA III storage ring is given. It serves as a reference for the beamline user community and, by giving a number of scientific examples, we hope to inspire future experiments.

Corrigendum to the article by Feuer-Forson et al. [(2024). J. Synchrotron Rad. 31, 698–705].

A `new theory for X-ray diffraction' proposed by Fewster in 2014 is shown to be based on a conceptual error. Residual intensity away from Bragg peaks is also discussed.

A reconstruction procedure for patterns with incomplete information is reported. It is based on a modified Papoulis–Gerchberg algorithm. The modifications were introduced to guide the reconstruction procedure. The reconstruction algorithm could prove useful in specific experimental geometry setups.

The XRD2 beamline at Elettra-Sincrotrone Trieste has been in operation since 2018 and is dedicated to macromolecular crystallography for both academic and industrial research, a role partially fulfilled, before 2018, by XRD1, a general-purpose diffraction beamline. With the upcoming Elettra 2.0 upgrade, based on a six-bend enhanced achromat lattice, the synchrotron will offer a brighter, more powerful beam to address evolving challenges in crystallography.

A sealed and portable chamber designed to simplify small angle x-ray diffraction (SAXD) experiments.

The Takagi–Taupin equations are solved in their simplest form (zero deformation) and equations of the diffracted and transmitted amplitudes are obtained using a matrix model. The theory presented is coded in the open-source software package crystalpy.

A paper-based virtual X-ray diffraction experiment, which is based on the right-angle condition for constructive inter­ference, allows the implications of Bragg's law to be studies in a simple way.

An algorithm is proposed for determining the orientational relationships and crystal unit-cell parameters of thin films using a laboratory X-ray diffractometer and stereographic projections. It is illustrated by the treatment of experimental data obtained for yttrium orthoferrite YFeO3 films on single crystalline sapphire (Al2O3) substrates.

iPowder, software for high-throughput X-ray diffraction analysis, automates tasks like indexing and unit-cell refinement, streamlining the data processing workflow and enhancing efficiency in materials science research.

An ultra-compact setup for in situ X-ray diffraction on the inelastic X-ray scattering beamline ID20 at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility is described.

Here, a novel high-temperature contactless furnace, compatible with a range of X-ray diffraction and imaging techniques, is introduced. This study outlines its design, characterizes its thermal performance, and demonstrates strain relaxation and grain growth within an iron grain upon in situ annealing, utilizing dark-field X-ray microscopy at the ESRF-ID03 beamline.

The development of CPICANN, a novel convolutional self-attention neural network, represents a groundbreaking approach in materials informatics. By leveraging the convolutional self-attention mechanism, CPICANN automates and significantly enhances the efficiency of crystal phase identification from whole X-ray powder diffraction patterns, marking a substantial advancement over traditional time-consuming methods.