The Neutron Diffraction Approach to Solvation

The seminal event in the foundation of solid-state science was the reahzation by von Laue that the ordered structure of atoms in a crystalline solid might act as a 

This represents the path-length difference with 0 as the glancing angle (see Section 5.2.3) allowed d, the distance between atoms, to be determined for the first time. The path to structure determination was open. 

X-ray analysis works when there are indeed ordered rows of atoms in a crystal. It also works in an examination of the structure of molten salts (Chapter 5), when there 

Although, as will be seen in this section, the developments of neutron diffraction 

It is necessary to have a neutron source and that, in turn, means that only laboratories that have access to a nuclear reactor can do such work.  

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