FIZ Karlsruhe – Leibniz Institute for Information Infrastructure has published a new brochure within its 'Focus' series. "A Focus on Crystallography" is dedicated to the content and development of ICSD - the Inorganic Crystal Structure Database. The database's fields of application are illustrated by examples. The brochure also shows the close relationship between crystallography and mathematics.
ICSD is an essential numerical database with the world's largest collection of inorganic crystal structures. It is a highly renowned basis for research in materials science and inorganic crystallography. Its beginnings date back to the year 1978, and it has been published by FIZ Karlsruhe in cooperation with the National Institute of Standards (NIST, USA) since 1997. Scientists around the globe use ICSD to identify or search for new crystalline compounds.
Driven by new application scenarios and technological progress, e.g. in the area of measuring procedures, crystallography is steadily evolving. Thanks to modern computer technology there is also much progress in the calculation of theoretical structures. Without mathematical methods it would not be possible to identify such highly complex structures.
However, the influence of mathematics dates back a lot further. For example, it allowed for the calculation of the platonic solids and enabled Kepler to examine snowflakes. Mathematical models are also required to explain the non-periodic quasicrystals, the discovery of which was awarded with the Nobel Prize in 2011. All this information can be followed up in zbMATH, the world's largest and most comprehensive mathematics database.
It is not only essential to document information on crystals in professional databases. Now more than ever before, targeted searching, analysis and post-processing of complex information also requires suitable tools that are state of the art. The brochure depicts the search and analysis features of the above mentioned databases with examples.
"A Focus on Crystallography" is available for free download at http://www.fiz-karlsruhe.de/publications.html.
