NIST Inorganic Crystal Structure Database (ICSD)

Materials discovery and development necessarily begins with the preparation and identification of product phase(s). Crystalline compounds can be identified by their characteristic diffraction patterns using X-rays, neutrons, and or electrons. An estimated 20,000 X-ray diffractometers and a comparable number of electron microscopes are used daily in materials research and development laboratories for this purpose. Access to crystal structure data is a critical step in solving research and applications problems in materials researches, and these data are of interest to analysts in areas such as materials design, property prediction and compound identification.