Correction of integrated X-ray intensities for preferred orientation in quantitative phase analysis

A method is presented for the correction of integrated X-ray intensities for preferred orientation of crystallites in a powder specimen. It is based on knowledge of the relative intensities of reflections of a random specimen on an arbitrary scale; these are supposed to be known in quantitative phase analysis. The orientation distribution of crystallites is represented by a harmonic expansion of which the coefficients can be determined from the intensities of reflections measured in the standard diffraction geometry of a powder diffractometer. The method was tested on a specimen of cubic titanium carbide by comparison with the texture correction obtained from direct examination of the pole-density distribution measured on a texture goniometer. The results of both methods are in agreement to within 1%.