Significance of Reference Materials for Calibration of Powder X-ray Diffractometer

The scientific research and new innovations are associated with the accurate and precise measurements which are crucial for operation of recent civilization. In order to maintain the precision and accuracy in analytical measurements, Reference Materials and Certified Reference Materials (CRMs) play a vital role for improving the measurement capability to obtain the property value close to its true value which in turn revamps the overall growth of country for better quality of life. Certified Reference Materials are basically used to assess the performance of analytical procedures and laboratory apparatus for authentic measurement data. In recent scientific world, many sophisticated instruments are emerging with their various facets of measurement capabilities to cater the need of high end research in the field of academia and industries. In recent years, powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) has been shown as the most powerful characterization and non-destructive technique to explore the structural investigation in terms of phase identification, size of a unit cell, volume fraction of phases, site occupancy of different elemental component, anti-site defects in materials and having many more other applications. The identification of mentioned information from PXRD instrument is a basic need in material science, geology, polymer, forensic science and environment etc. This article focuses on the importance of CRMs for calibrating the instruments and validation of analytical methods. Also the article explicitly discuss about the importance and applications of PXRD technique together with the role of National Physical Laboratory, India the national institute of measurement NMI of India.