Four years ago, Dr. Ting C. Huang, Editor-in-Chief of Powder Diffraction, attended the 8th Chinese National Conference on X-ray Diffraction. He was very impressed with the technical results and quality of the papers and suggested that selected papers presented at the conference be published in Powder Diffraction. This led to a special section with seven selected papers in the December 2004 issue of Powder Diffraction. Last year, the 9th Chinese National Conference on X-ray Diffraction and ICDD Workshop was held in Hangzhou, China from October 15 to 17, 2006, with one full day devoted to the ICDD Workshop in a general session. The conference was sponsored by the Chinese Commission on Powder Diffraction, the Chinese Society of Crystallography, the Chinese Commission on X-ray Diffraction, the Chinese Society of Physics, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Beijing Ceramic Society, and ICDD, and the local organizer was Zhejiang University of Science and Technology. Over 270 participants attended from universities, institutions, industry, and XRD vendors across China, Japan, India, the Netherlands, and the United States—a 60% increase in attendance over the previous conference.
Five invited keynote lectures, five plenary presentations from XRD instrumentation manufacturers, and 60 oral presentations covering fundamental research, experimental techniques, structure determination, and applications in XRD were given. Dr. Huang gave an invited talk and was also present in several sessions. He found many of the papers quite interesting and of high quality. As a result, he suggested that representative papers presented at the conference showing the research and applications of X-ray diffraction done in China over the past three years be published in Powder Diffraction. The Conference Organizing Committee was delighted at his suggestion. Thanks to the concerted efforts of Dr. Huang, the authors, and the reviewers, a total of nine papers were selected, edited, and now appear in this December 2007 issue. Although these papers do not cover all aspects in the field of X-ray diffraction in China, they do provide insight into various XRD research and applications done in the Chinese XRD community.
China is now seeing a rapid expansion in the use of XRD diffractometers as a result of its economic expansion. It is estimated that the annual growth rate of the number of diffractometers in China is over 10%, similar to China’s GDP growth rate. X-ray diffraction technique is becoming more popular in both academic research and industrial applications. In recognition of the rapid expansion of XRD research and applications in China, Powder Diffraction invited me to serve as one of its editors starting in January 2007. I am delighted at this opportunity to help highlight the many research endeavors of the Chinese XRD community to the readers of Powder Diffraction.
