International Center for Diffraction Data (ICDD)

The International Centre for Diffraction Data (ICDD) is a non-profit scientific organization dedicated to collecting, editing, publishing, and distributing powder diffraction data for the identification of crystalline materials. The membership of the ICDD consists of worldwide representation from academe, government, and industry. After the development of the first X-ray powder diffraction techniques in the early part of the twentieth century, the need for a central collection of diffraction patterns from known phases became apparent. Following the publication of two landmark papers in the late 1930s on the archiving and use of powder data for phase analysis by Dow scientists, the Joint Committee for Chemical Analysis by Powder Diffraction Methods was founded in 1941.