Treatment of hydrogen background in bulk and nanocrystalline neutron total scattering experiments

Nuclear incoherent neutron scattering contributions present a challenge in the structural characterization of many classes of materials. This article introduces methods for the correction of nanoparticle, bulk crystalline and amorphous powder neutron scattering data with significant incoherent contributions from hydrogen, and describes the effects the corrections have on the resulting atomic pair distribution function data sets. The approach is presented in the context of the PDFgetN data-reduction program [Peterson, Gutmann, Proffen & Billinge (2000). J. Appl. Cryst. 33, 1192].