>I had the impression that neutron diffraction requires a large amount of
>sample. Isn't this a limitation is some cases ?
This is true to a certain extent, although it depends on the complexity of
the structure and on the elemental content. To get reasonable statistics at
very high resolution, I would say that a reasonable minimum amount is about
0.25 cm^3. If you relax the resolution (say, by a factor of 3), you can run
with much smaller samples. I personally run a 40 mg Tl2Mn2O7 pyrochlore
sample and got very good data. Other people have run with as little as 10
mg. This amount allows one to measure samples prepared by high-pressure
(<200 Kbar), high-temperature synthesis.
Paolo
