The diffraction from a crystalline material, and thus the intensity of the diffracted beam, changes with the type and number of atoms inside the crystal unit cell. This fact is quantitatively expressed by the structure factor. Different materials have different structure factors, and similarly for different phases of the same material (e.g. for materials crystallizing in several different space groups). In samples composed of a mixture of materials/phases in spatially adjacent domains, the geometry of these domains can be resolved by topography. This is true, for example, also for twinned crystals, ferroelectric domains, and many others.