Crystalline material may be divided into single crystals, twin crystals, polycrystals, and crystal powder. In a single crystal, the arrangement of atoms, ions, or molecules is defined by a single crystal structure in one orientation. Twin crystals, on the other hand, consist of single-crystalline twin domains, which are aligned by twin laws and separated by domain walls.
Polycrystals are made of a large number of small single crystals, or crystallites, held together by thin layers of amorphous solid. Crystal powder is obtained by grinding crystals, resulting in powder particles, made up of one or more crystallites. Both polycrystals and crystal powder consist of many crystallites with varying orientation.
Crystal phases are defined as regions with the same crystal structure, irrespective of orientation or twinning. Single and twinned crystalline specimens therefore constitute individual crystal phases. Polycrystalline or crystal powder samples may consist of more than one crystal phase. Such a phase comprises all the crystallites in the sample with the same crystal structure.
Crystal phases can be identified by successfully matching suitable crystallographic parameters with their counterparts in database entries. Prior knowledge of the chemical composition of the crystal phase can be used to reduce the number of database entries to a small selection of candidate structures and thus simplify the crystal phase identification process considerably.