Quanto: a Rietveld program for quantitative phase analysis of polycrystalline mixtures

Quantitative determination of phase abundance in a multicomponent polycryst alline mixture is a basic goal in materials characterization. Because of se veral advantages compared with traditional techniques, the Rietveld method has been increasingly applied to this task. Further progress in this direct ion would be to carry out the analysis automatically. The new Rietveld pack age Quanto is devoted to the automatic estimation of the weight fraction of each crystalline phase in a mixture. The amorphous content can be estimate d by means of the internal-standard method. Corrections for preferred orien tation and microabsorption effects are available. A user-friendly graphical interface facilitates interaction. A data bank including several organic a nd inorganic phases is supplied with the program.