Pecharsky (Iowa State University) and Zavalij (State University of New York, Binghamton) explain in their preface that the powder diffraction method has been used for more than 90 years as a means of structural characterization of materials; but it has become even more important to advancements in materials science, chemistry, physics, natural sciences, and engineering due to developments in the past decade such as digital x-ray recording, groundbreaking work showing the application of powder diffraction data to structure refinement and solution, and computers and the internet. This text for undergraduate and graduate students requires no prior knowledge of the subject. It provides both theoretical and practical coverage with emphasis on data collected using conventional x-ray sources and general-purpose powder diffractometers. The included CD-ROM contains color versions of some 300 illustrations as well as powder diffraction data needed for the end-of-chapter problems.