Hugo Rietveld, Dutch crystallographer, Died at 84

  Reseacher

Hugo M. Rietveld was born on March 7, 1932, and died on July 16, 2016.

He was a Dutch crystallographer and one of the most prominent crystallographers of the 20th century.

Hugo was famous for his invention of the Rietveld refinement method, which is used for the characterisation of crystalline materials from powder diffraction data.

This is where the Rietveld refinement method uses a least squares approach to refine a theoretical line profile (calculated from a known or postulated crystal structure) until it matches the measured profile.

This type of technique was a significant step forward in the diffraction analysis of powder samples.

During 1964, Hugo became a research officer at the Netherlands Energy Research Foundation ECN in Petten, and was mainly involved in neutron powder diffraction studies of uranates and other ceramic compounds.

Following his scientific and managerial career with ECN he retired in 1992.

Hugo Rietveld passed away at 84 years old.