Re: [Ifeffit] Asymmetric error bars in IFeffit

2010-10-25 Thread Matt Newville
Hi Scott,

That's a pretty amazing use case.

But I'm not sure I understand the issue exactly right.   I would have
thought the volume (r**3) was the important physical parameter, and
that a 1000nm particle would dominate the spectra over 3nm particles.
   Or is it that you are trying to distinguish between 1 very large
crystal  or 100s of smaller crystals?   Perhaps the effect you're
really trying to account for is the surface/volume ratio?  If so, I
think using Matthew Marcus's suggestion of using 1/r (with a safety
margin) makes the most sense.

--Matt

On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 3:23 PM, Scott Calvin dr.scott.cal...@gmail.com wrote:
 Hi all,
 I'm puzzling over an issue with my latest analysis, and it seemed like the
 sort of thing where this mailing list might have some good ideas.
 First, a little background on the analysis. It is a simultaneous fit to four
 samples, made of various combinations of three phases. Mossbauer has
 established which samples include which phases. One of the phases itself has
 two crystallographically inequivalent  absorbing sites. The result is that
 the fit includes 12 Feff calculations, four data sets, and 1000 paths.
 Remarkably, everything works quite well, yielding a satisfying and
 informative fit. Depending on the details, the fit takes about 90 minutes to
 run. Kudos to Ifeffit and Horae for making such a thing possible!
 Several of the parameters that the fit finds are characteristic crystallite
 radii for the individual phases. In my published fits, I often include a
 factor that accounts for the fact that a phase is nanoscale in a crude way:
 it assumes the phase is present as spheres of uniform radius and applies a
 suppression factor to the coordination numbers of the paths as a function of
 that radius and of the absorber-scatterer distance. Even though this model
 is rarely strictly correct in terms of morphology and size dispersion, it
 gives a first-order approximation to the effect of the reduced coordination
 numbers found in nanoscale materials. Some people, notably Anatoly Frenkel,
 have published models which deal with this effect much more realistically.
 But those techniques also require more fitted variables and work best with
 fairly well-behaved samples. I tend to work with messy chemical samples of
 free nanoparticles where the assumption of sphericity isn't terrible, and
 the size dispersion is difficult to model accurately.
 At any rate, the project I'm currently working on includes a fitted
 characteristic radius of the type I've described for each of the phases in
 each of the samples. And again, it seems to work pretty well, yielding
 values that are plausible and largely stable.
 That's the background information. Now for my question:
 The effect of the characteristic radius on the spectrum is a strongly
 nonlinear function of that radius. For example, the difference between the
 EXAFS spectra of 100 nm and 1000 nm single crystals due to the coordination
 number effect is completely negligible. The difference between 1 nm and 10
 nm crystals, however, is huge.
 So for very small crystallites, IFeffit reports perfectly reasonable error
 bars: the radius is 0.7 +/- 0.3 nm, for instance. For somewhat larger
 crystallites, however, it tends to report values like 10 +/- 500 nm. I
 understand why it does that: it's evaluating how much the parameter would
 have to change by to have a given impact on the chi square of the fit. And
 it turns out that once you get to about 10 nm, the size could go arbitrarily
 higher than that and not change the spectrum much at all. But it couldn't go
 that much lower without affecting the spectrum. So what IFeffit means is
 something like the best fit value is 10 nm, and it is probable that the
 value is at least 4 nm. But it's operating under the assumption that the
 dependence of chi-square on the parameter is parabolic, so it comes up with
 a compromise between a 6 nm error bar on the low side and an infinitely
 large error bar on the high side. Compromising with infinity, however,
 rarely yields sensible results.
 Thus my question is if anyone can think of a way to extract some sense of
 these asymmetric error bars from IFeffit. Here are possibilities I've
 considered:
 --Fit something like the log of the characteristic radius, rather than the
 radius itself. That creates an asymmetric error bar for the radius, but the
 asymmetry the new error bar possesses has no relationship to the uncertainty
 it should possess. This seems to me like it's just a way of sweeping the
 problem under the rug and is potentially misleading.
 --Rerun the fits setting the variable in question to different values to
 probe how far up or down it can go and have the same effect on the fit. But
 since I've got nine of these factors, and each fit takes more than an hour,
 the computer time required seems prohibitive!
 --Somehow parameterize the guessed variable so that it does tend to have
 symmetric error bars, and then calculate

Re: [Ifeffit] Asymmetric error bars in IFeffit

2010-10-25 Thread Scott Calvin
Yes; it's a case of trying to distinguish between a few boulders and  
lots of pebbles; the total volume isn't the issue.


What I'm looking at is something like surface/volume ratio, but with  
surface being path-dependent and gradual. For a nearest-neighbor  
path, only the top monolayer of atoms are on the surface. For a 5  
angstrom path, the transition region from surface to core extends  
5 angstroms in.


But that more sophisticated definition of surface doesn't change the  
fact that the dominant dependence is 1/R, so that should address the  
issue.


--Scott Calvin
Sarah Lawrence College

On Oct 25, 2010, at 4:43 AM, Matt Newville wrote:


Hi Scott,

That's a pretty amazing use case.

But I'm not sure I understand the issue exactly right.   I would have
thought the volume (r**3) was the important physical parameter, and
that a 1000nm particle would dominate the spectra over 3nm particles.
  Or is it that you are trying to distinguish between 1 very large
crystal  or 100s of smaller crystals?   Perhaps the effect you're
really trying to account for is the surface/volume ratio?  If so, I
think using Matthew Marcus's suggestion of using 1/r (with a safety
margin) makes the most sense.

--Matt



___
Ifeffit mailing list
Ifeffit@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov
http://millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov/mailman/listinfo/ifeffit


Re: [Ifeffit] Asymmetric error bars in IFeffit

2010-10-24 Thread Frenkel, Anatoly
Scott,
It is a strange result. Suppose you fit a bulk metal foil and vary the 1nn 
coordination number. You will not get 12 +/- 1000. You will get about 12 +/- 
0.3 depending on the data quality and the k range, and on the amplitude factor 
you fix constant. Then, suppose you take your formula for a particle radius 
from your JAP article and propagate this uncertainty to get the radius 
uncertainty. That would give you a huge error because you are in the flat 
region of the N(R) function and R does bit affect N.
The meaning of your large error bar is, I think, that you are in such a large 
limit of sizes that they cannot be inverted to get N and thus the errors cannot 
be propagated to find Delta R.
Why don't you try to obtain N instead of R? You will get much smaller error 
bars and you can find the lower R limit from your N(R) equation (by plugging in 
N - deltaN you will find R - delta R).

The right limit is infinity as you pointed out.

Anatoly 




From: ifeffit-boun...@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov 
ifeffit-boun...@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov 
To: XAFS Analysis using Ifeffit ifeffit@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov 
Sent: Fri Oct 22 16:23:08 2010
Subject: [Ifeffit] Asymmetric error bars in IFeffit 


Hi all,

I'm puzzling over an issue with my latest analysis, and it seemed like the sort 
of thing where this mailing list might have some good ideas.

First, a little background on the analysis. It is a simultaneous fit to four 
samples, made of various combinations of three phases. Mossbauer has 
established which samples include which phases. One of the phases itself has 
two crystallographically inequivalent  absorbing sites. The result is that the 
fit includes 12 Feff calculations, four data sets, and 1000 paths. Remarkably, 
everything works quite well, yielding a satisfying and informative fit. 
Depending on the details, the fit takes about 90 minutes to run. Kudos to 
Ifeffit and Horae for making such a thing possible!

Several of the parameters that the fit finds are characteristic crystallite 
radii for the individual phases. In my published fits, I often include a 
factor that accounts for the fact that a phase is nanoscale in a crude way: it 
assumes the phase is present as spheres of uniform radius and applies a 
suppression factor to the coordination numbers of the paths as a function of 
that radius and of the absorber-scatterer distance. Even though this model is 
rarely strictly correct in terms of morphology and size dispersion, it gives a 
first-order approximation to the effect of the reduced coordination numbers 
found in nanoscale materials. Some people, notably Anatoly Frenkel, have 
published models which deal with this effect much more realistically. But those 
techniques also require more fitted variables and work best with fairly 
well-behaved samples. I tend to work with messy chemical samples of free 
nanoparticles where the assumption of sphericity isn't terrible, and the size 
dispersion is difficult to model accurately.

At any rate, the project I'm currently working on includes a fitted 
characteristic radius of the type I've described for each of the phases in each 
of the samples. And again, it seems to work pretty well, yielding values that 
are plausible and largely stable.

That's the background information. Now for my question:

The effect of the characteristic radius on the spectrum is a strongly nonlinear 
function of that radius. For example, the difference between the EXAFS spectra 
of 100 nm and 1000 nm single crystals due to the coordination number effect is 
completely negligible. The difference between 1 nm and 10 nm crystals, however, 
is huge.

So for very small crystallites, IFeffit reports perfectly reasonable error 
bars: the radius is 0.7 +/- 0.3 nm, for instance. For somewhat larger 
crystallites, however, it tends to report values like 10 +/- 500 nm. I 
understand why it does that: it's evaluating how much the parameter would have 
to change by to have a given impact on the chi square of the fit. And it turns 
out that once you get to about 10 nm, the size could go arbitrarily higher than 
that and not change the spectrum much at all. But it couldn't go that much 
lower without affecting the spectrum. So what IFeffit means is something like 
the best fit value is 10 nm, and it is probable that the value is at least 4 
nm. But it's operating under the assumption that the dependence of chi-square 
on the parameter is parabolic, so it comes up with a compromise between a 6 nm 
error bar on the low side and an infinitely large error bar on the high side. 
Compromising with infinity, however, rarely yields sensible results.

Thus my question is if anyone can think of a way to extract some sense of these 
asymmetric error bars from IFeffit. Here are possibilities I've considered:

--Fit something like the log of the characteristic radius, rather than the 
radius itself. That creates an asymmetric error bar for the radius

Re: [Ifeffit] Asymmetric error bars in IFeffit

2010-10-24 Thread Scott Calvin
I don't think it's at all strange, Anatoly, and I think Matthew's  
solution is the right one--it seems obvious in retrospect that the  
parameter that Ifeffit should evaluate is 1/R, but apparently it  
wasn't obvious to me on Friday. :)


As for obtaining N instead of R, the beauty of both of our algorithms  
is that they don't depend on finding N; they depend on finding the  
ratio of N's for different shells. Finding N accurately is notoriously  
challenging: you need some way of getting S02, you need to have the  
normalization right, and you're sunk if there are data quality issues  
like an inhomogeneous sample, uncorrected self-absorption, or  
significant beam harmonics. But finding the ratio of N for two or more  
different shells doesn't depend so strongly on any of those things.


Since my method implicitly involves multiple ratios of coordination  
numbers, it is not so clear how to invert it.


In any case, I expect Matthew's solution to work, and will pursue it  
further on Monday.


--Scott Calvin
Sarah Lawrence College

On Oct 24, 2010, at 5:59 PM, Frenkel, Anatoly wrote:


Scott,
It is a strange result. Suppose you fit a bulk metal foil and vary  
the 1nn coordination number. You will not get 12 +/- 1000. You will  
get about 12 +/- 0.3 depending on the data quality and the k range,  
and on the amplitude factor you fix constant. Then, suppose you take  
your formula for a particle radius from your JAP article and  
propagate this uncertainty to get the radius uncertainty. That would  
give you a huge error because you are in the flat region of the N(R)  
function and R does bit affect N.
The meaning of your large error bar is, I think, that you are in  
such a large limit of sizes that they cannot be inverted to get N  
and thus the errors cannot be propagated to find Delta R.
Why don't you try to obtain N instead of R? You will get much  
smaller error bars and you can find the lower R limit from your N(R)  
equation (by plugging in N - deltaN you will find R - delta R).


The right limit is infinity as you pointed out.

Anatoly


From: ifeffit-boun...@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov ifeffit-boun...@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov 


To: XAFS Analysis using Ifeffit ifeffit@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov
Sent: Fri Oct 22 16:23:08 2010
Subject: [Ifeffit] Asymmetric error bars in IFeffit

Hi all,

I'm puzzling over an issue with my latest analysis, and it seemed  
like the sort of thing where this mailing list might have some good  
ideas.


First, a little background on the analysis. It is a simultaneous fit  
to four samples, made of various combinations of three phases.  
Mossbauer has established which samples include which phases. One of  
the phases itself has two crystallographically inequivalent   
absorbing sites. The result is that the fit includes 12 Feff  
calculations, four data sets, and 1000 paths. Remarkably, everything  
works quite well, yielding a satisfying and informative fit.  
Depending on the details, the fit takes about 90 minutes to run.  
Kudos to Ifeffit and Horae for making such a thing possible!


Several of the parameters that the fit finds are characteristic  
crystallite radii for the individual phases. In my published fits,  
I often include a factor that accounts for the fact that a phase is  
nanoscale in a crude way: it assumes the phase is present as spheres  
of uniform radius and applies a suppression factor to the  
coordination numbers of the paths as a function of that radius and  
of the absorber-scatterer distance. Even though this model is rarely  
strictly correct in terms of morphology and size dispersion, it  
gives a first-order approximation to the effect of the reduced  
coordination numbers found in nanoscale materials. Some people,  
notably Anatoly Frenkel, have published models which deal with this  
effect much more realistically. But those techniques also require  
more fitted variables and work best with fairly well-behaved  
samples. I tend to work with messy chemical samples of free  
nanoparticles where the assumption of sphericity isn't terrible, and  
the size dispersion is difficult to model accurately.


At any rate, the project I'm currently working on includes a fitted  
characteristic radius of the type I've described for each of the  
phases in each of the samples. And again, it seems to work pretty  
well, yielding values that are plausible and largely stable.


That's the background information. Now for my question:

The effect of the characteristic radius on the spectrum is a  
strongly nonlinear function of that radius. For example, the  
difference between the EXAFS spectra of 100 nm and 1000 nm single  
crystals due to the coordination number effect is completely  
negligible. The difference between 1 nm and 10 nm crystals, however,  
is huge.


So for very small crystallites, IFeffit reports perfectly reasonable  
error bars: the radius is 0.7 +/- 0.3 nm, for instance. For somewhat  
larger

Re: [Ifeffit] Asymmetric error bars in IFeffit

2010-10-23 Thread Matthew Marcus
The idea was that FEFF was not necessarily trustworthy to get the absolute 
answers, but was good enough to get the difference, say,
between Al and Si, and Cu and Zn.  In other words, experiment was the ground 
truth and FEFF used to extrapolate it to where it
wasn't available.
mam
  - Original Message - 
  From: Frenkel, Anatoly 
  To: ifeffit@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov 
  Sent: Friday, October 22, 2010 6:20 PM
  Subject: Re: [Ifeffit] Asymmetric error bars in IFeffit


  Matthew, if you relied on FEFF as one part of the complex calculation, where 
the other part was the experimentally extracted one, you could've as well done 
everything with just FEFF. Why didn't you?
  A.



--
  From: ifeffit-boun...@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov 
ifeffit-boun...@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov 
  To: XAFS Analysis using Ifeffit ifeffit@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov 
  Sent: Fri Oct 22 18:01:17 2010
  Subject: Re: [Ifeffit] Asymmetric error bars in IFeffit 


  Another reason, from my point of view, is that FEFF wasn't accurate enough to 
use on its own without references.  Also, it still can be argued that
  the process of data reduction and filtering produces distortions which aren't 
captured by using FEFF alone.  Further, if one is comparing
  very similar systems, e.g. bulk and nano of the same stuff, then with the 
exception of multiple scattering, the one system should be an ideal
  reference for the other.

  A trick I used to do:  Suppose, for instance, that I wanted to fit a shell of 
Zn surrounded by Si (not an actual case).  There's no Si-rich
  zinc silicide to use as a reference, but it's not too hard to make 
theta-CuAl2, a compound in which all Cu atoms are surrounded by Al in the
  first shell (this was done).  From this, amp and phase functions could be 
extracted which refer to Cu looking at Al (Cu-Al). Next, to transform this into
  the desired Zn-Si, I would do FEFF calculations on identical structures with 
the atoms changed around and take:

  A(Zn-Si, semi-empirical) = A(Cu-Al, expt)*[A(Zn-Si, FEFF)/A(Cu-Al, FEFF)]
  phi(Zn-Si, semi-empirical) = phi(Cu-Al, expt)+[Phi(Zn-Si, 
FEFF)-phi(Cu-Al, FEFF)]

  with A, phi being amplitude and phase for a given shell, and appropriate 
account being taken of the distance differences involved.

  This makes sense if you consider A~ = A*exp(i*phi) to be one of the factors 
in a complex chi~ such that chi = Im(chi~), and you're
  essentially making a correction to ln(A~).  Yes, this was low-rent and 
subject to errors, but it seemed to make sense provided
  one didn't try to take it too far, for instance trying to change Al for Au or 
an oxide for a metal.

  Brings back memories, not all of them fond :-)
  mam
- Original Message - 
From: Frenkel, Anatoly 
To: ifeffit@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov 
Sent: Friday, October 22, 2010 2:38 PM
Subject: Re: [Ifeffit] Asymmetric error bars in IFeffit


On a related subject, now I understand why we use the concept of chemical 
transferability of amplitudes and phases by recycling the same FEFF path for 
different systems. The true reason is historic: back then it took one hour for 
one FEFF calculation
Anatoly





From: ifeffit-boun...@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov 
ifeffit-boun...@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov 
To: XAFS Analysis using Ifeffit ifeffit@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov 
Sent: Fri Oct 22 16:23:08 2010
Subject: [Ifeffit] Asymmetric error bars in IFeffit 


Hi all, 


I'm puzzling over an issue with my latest analysis, and it seemed like the 
sort of thing where this mailing list might have some good ideas.


First, a little background on the analysis. It is a simultaneous fit to 
four samples, made of various combinations of three phases. Mossbauer has 
established which samples include which phases. One of the phases itself has 
two crystallographically inequivalent  absorbing sites. The result is that the 
fit includes 12 Feff calculations, four data sets, and 1000 paths. Remarkably, 
everything works quite well, yielding a satisfying and informative fit. 
Depending on the details, the fit takes about 90 minutes to run. Kudos to 
Ifeffit and Horae for making such a thing possible!


Several of the parameters that the fit finds are characteristic 
crystallite radii for the individual phases. In my published fits, I often 
include a factor that accounts for the fact that a phase is nanoscale in a 
crude way: it assumes the phase is present as spheres of uniform radius and 
applies a suppression factor to the coordination numbers of the paths as a 
function of that radius and of the absorber-scatterer distance. Even though 
this model is rarely strictly correct in terms of morphology and size 
dispersion, it gives a first-order approximation to the effect of the reduced 
coordination numbers found

Re: [Ifeffit] Asymmetric error bars in IFeffit

2010-10-22 Thread Matthew Marcus
Some quantities, such as effective coordination numbers, are roughly linear in 
1/size, so there's an argument for doing the coordinate transformation 
size-1/size.
If you do that, then be sure to make things functions of abs(u) where 
u==1/size, because u0 is unphysical.  Doing it this way also allows a simple 
way of testing
for having it be bulk-like, by setting u=0.
mam
  - Original Message - 
  From: Scott Calvin 
  To: XAFS Analysis using Ifeffit 
  Sent: Friday, October 22, 2010 1:23 PM
  Subject: [Ifeffit] Asymmetric error bars in IFeffit


  Hi all,


  I'm puzzling over an issue with my latest analysis, and it seemed like the 
sort of thing where this mailing list might have some good ideas.


  First, a little background on the analysis. It is a simultaneous fit to four 
samples, made of various combinations of three phases. Mossbauer has 
established which samples include which phases. One of the phases itself has 
two crystallographically inequivalent  absorbing sites. The result is that the 
fit includes 12 Feff calculations, four data sets, and 1000 paths. Remarkably, 
everything works quite well, yielding a satisfying and informative fit. 
Depending on the details, the fit takes about 90 minutes to run. Kudos to 
Ifeffit and Horae for making such a thing possible!


  Several of the parameters that the fit finds are characteristic crystallite 
radii for the individual phases. In my published fits, I often include a 
factor that accounts for the fact that a phase is nanoscale in a crude way: it 
assumes the phase is present as spheres of uniform radius and applies a 
suppression factor to the coordination numbers of the paths as a function of 
that radius and of the absorber-scatterer distance. Even though this model is 
rarely strictly correct in terms of morphology and size dispersion, it gives a 
first-order approximation to the effect of the reduced coordination numbers 
found in nanoscale materials. Some people, notably Anatoly Frenkel, have 
published models which deal with this effect much more realistically. But those 
techniques also require more fitted variables and work best with fairly 
well-behaved samples. I tend to work with messy chemical samples of free 
nanoparticles where the assumption of sphericity isn't terrible, and the size 
dispersion is difficult to model accurately.


  At any rate, the project I'm currently working on includes a fitted 
characteristic radius of the type I've described for each of the phases in each 
of the samples. And again, it seems to work pretty well, yielding values that 
are plausible and largely stable.


  That's the background information. Now for my question:


  The effect of the characteristic radius on the spectrum is a strongly 
nonlinear function of that radius. For example, the difference between the 
EXAFS spectra of 100 nm and 1000 nm single crystals due to the coordination 
number effect is completely negligible. The difference between 1 nm and 10 nm 
crystals, however, is huge.


  So for very small crystallites, IFeffit reports perfectly reasonable error 
bars: the radius is 0.7 +/- 0.3 nm, for instance. For somewhat larger 
crystallites, however, it tends to report values like 10 +/- 500 nm. I 
understand why it does that: it's evaluating how much the parameter would have 
to change by to have a given impact on the chi square of the fit. And it turns 
out that once you get to about 10 nm, the size could go arbitrarily higher than 
that and not change the spectrum much at all. But it couldn't go that much 
lower without affecting the spectrum. So what IFeffit means is something like 
the best fit value is 10 nm, and it is probable that the value is at least 4 
nm. But it's operating under the assumption that the dependence of chi-square 
on the parameter is parabolic, so it comes up with a compromise between a 6 nm 
error bar on the low side and an infinitely large error bar on the high side. 
Compromising with infinity, however, rarely yields sensible results.


  Thus my question is if anyone can think of a way to extract some sense of 
these asymmetric error bars from IFeffit. Here are possibilities I've 
considered:


  --Fit something like the log of the characteristic radius, rather than the 
radius itself. That creates an asymmetric error bar for the radius, but the 
asymmetry the new error bar possesses has no relationship to the uncertainty it 
should possess. This seems to me like it's just a way of sweeping the problem 
under the rug and is potentially misleading.


  --Rerun the fits setting the variable in question to different values to 
probe how far up or down it can go and have the same effect on the fit. But 
since I've got nine of these factors, and each fit takes more than an hour, the 
computer time required seems prohibitive!


  --Somehow parameterize the guessed variable so that it does tend to have 
symmetric error bars, and then calculate the characteristic radius and its 
error bars from

Re: [Ifeffit] Asymmetric error bars in IFeffit

2010-10-22 Thread Frenkel, Anatoly
On a related subject, now I understand why we use the concept of chemical 
transferability of amplitudes and phases by recycling the same FEFF path for 
different systems. The true reason is historic: back then it took one hour for 
one FEFF calculation
Anatoly




From: ifeffit-boun...@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov 
ifeffit-boun...@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov 
To: XAFS Analysis using Ifeffit ifeffit@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov 
Sent: Fri Oct 22 16:23:08 2010
Subject: [Ifeffit] Asymmetric error bars in IFeffit 


Hi all,

I'm puzzling over an issue with my latest analysis, and it seemed like the sort 
of thing where this mailing list might have some good ideas.

First, a little background on the analysis. It is a simultaneous fit to four 
samples, made of various combinations of three phases. Mossbauer has 
established which samples include which phases. One of the phases itself has 
two crystallographically inequivalent  absorbing sites. The result is that the 
fit includes 12 Feff calculations, four data sets, and 1000 paths. Remarkably, 
everything works quite well, yielding a satisfying and informative fit. 
Depending on the details, the fit takes about 90 minutes to run. Kudos to 
Ifeffit and Horae for making such a thing possible!

Several of the parameters that the fit finds are characteristic crystallite 
radii for the individual phases. In my published fits, I often include a 
factor that accounts for the fact that a phase is nanoscale in a crude way: it 
assumes the phase is present as spheres of uniform radius and applies a 
suppression factor to the coordination numbers of the paths as a function of 
that radius and of the absorber-scatterer distance. Even though this model is 
rarely strictly correct in terms of morphology and size dispersion, it gives a 
first-order approximation to the effect of the reduced coordination numbers 
found in nanoscale materials. Some people, notably Anatoly Frenkel, have 
published models which deal with this effect much more realistically. But those 
techniques also require more fitted variables and work best with fairly 
well-behaved samples. I tend to work with messy chemical samples of free 
nanoparticles where the assumption of sphericity isn't terrible, and the size 
dispersion is difficult to model accurately.

At any rate, the project I'm currently working on includes a fitted 
characteristic radius of the type I've described for each of the phases in each 
of the samples. And again, it seems to work pretty well, yielding values that 
are plausible and largely stable.

That's the background information. Now for my question:

The effect of the characteristic radius on the spectrum is a strongly nonlinear 
function of that radius. For example, the difference between the EXAFS spectra 
of 100 nm and 1000 nm single crystals due to the coordination number effect is 
completely negligible. The difference between 1 nm and 10 nm crystals, however, 
is huge.

So for very small crystallites, IFeffit reports perfectly reasonable error 
bars: the radius is 0.7 +/- 0.3 nm, for instance. For somewhat larger 
crystallites, however, it tends to report values like 10 +/- 500 nm. I 
understand why it does that: it's evaluating how much the parameter would have 
to change by to have a given impact on the chi square of the fit. And it turns 
out that once you get to about 10 nm, the size could go arbitrarily higher than 
that and not change the spectrum much at all. But it couldn't go that much 
lower without affecting the spectrum. So what IFeffit means is something like 
the best fit value is 10 nm, and it is probable that the value is at least 4 
nm. But it's operating under the assumption that the dependence of chi-square 
on the parameter is parabolic, so it comes up with a compromise between a 6 nm 
error bar on the low side and an infinitely large error bar on the high side. 
Compromising with infinity, however, rarely yields sensible results.

Thus my question is if anyone can think of a way to extract some sense of these 
asymmetric error bars from IFeffit. Here are possibilities I've considered:

--Fit something like the log of the characteristic radius, rather than the 
radius itself. That creates an asymmetric error bar for the radius, but the 
asymmetry the new error bar possesses has no relationship to the uncertainty it 
should possess. This seems to me like it's just a way of sweeping the problem 
under the rug and is potentially misleading.

--Rerun the fits setting the variable in question to different values to probe 
how far up or down it can go and have the same effect on the fit. But since 
I've got nine of these factors, and each fit takes more than an hour, the 
computer time required seems prohibitive!

--Somehow parameterize the guessed variable so that it does tend to have 
symmetric error bars, and then calculate the characteristic radius and its 
error bars from that. But it's not at all clear what

Re: [Ifeffit] Asymmetric error bars in IFeffit

2010-10-22 Thread Matthew Marcus
Another reason, from my point of view, is that FEFF wasn't accurate enough to 
use on its own without references.  Also, it still can be argued that
the process of data reduction and filtering produces distortions which aren't 
captured by using FEFF alone.  Further, if one is comparing
very similar systems, e.g. bulk and nano of the same stuff, then with the 
exception of multiple scattering, the one system should be an ideal
reference for the other.

A trick I used to do:  Suppose, for instance, that I wanted to fit a shell of 
Zn surrounded by Si (not an actual case).  There's no Si-rich
zinc silicide to use as a reference, but it's not too hard to make theta-CuAl2, 
a compound in which all Cu atoms are surrounded by Al in the
first shell (this was done).  From this, amp and phase functions could be 
extracted which refer to Cu looking at Al (Cu-Al). Next, to transform this into
the desired Zn-Si, I would do FEFF calculations on identical structures with 
the atoms changed around and take:

A(Zn-Si, semi-empirical) = A(Cu-Al, expt)*[A(Zn-Si, FEFF)/A(Cu-Al, FEFF)]
phi(Zn-Si, semi-empirical) = phi(Cu-Al, expt)+[Phi(Zn-Si, FEFF)-phi(Cu-Al, 
FEFF)]

with A, phi being amplitude and phase for a given shell, and appropriate 
account being taken of the distance differences involved.

This makes sense if you consider A~ = A*exp(i*phi) to be one of the factors in 
a complex chi~ such that chi = Im(chi~), and you're
essentially making a correction to ln(A~).  Yes, this was low-rent and subject 
to errors, but it seemed to make sense provided
one didn't try to take it too far, for instance trying to change Al for Au or 
an oxide for a metal.

Brings back memories, not all of them fond :-)
mam
  - Original Message - 
  From: Frenkel, Anatoly 
  To: ifeffit@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov 
  Sent: Friday, October 22, 2010 2:38 PM
  Subject: Re: [Ifeffit] Asymmetric error bars in IFeffit


  On a related subject, now I understand why we use the concept of chemical 
transferability of amplitudes and phases by recycling the same FEFF path for 
different systems. The true reason is historic: back then it took one hour for 
one FEFF calculation
  Anatoly




--
  From: ifeffit-boun...@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov 
ifeffit-boun...@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov 
  To: XAFS Analysis using Ifeffit ifeffit@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov 
  Sent: Fri Oct 22 16:23:08 2010
  Subject: [Ifeffit] Asymmetric error bars in IFeffit 


  Hi all,


  I'm puzzling over an issue with my latest analysis, and it seemed like the 
sort of thing where this mailing list might have some good ideas.


  First, a little background on the analysis. It is a simultaneous fit to four 
samples, made of various combinations of three phases. Mossbauer has 
established which samples include which phases. One of the phases itself has 
two crystallographically inequivalent  absorbing sites. The result is that the 
fit includes 12 Feff calculations, four data sets, and 1000 paths. Remarkably, 
everything works quite well, yielding a satisfying and informative fit. 
Depending on the details, the fit takes about 90 minutes to run. Kudos to 
Ifeffit and Horae for making such a thing possible!


  Several of the parameters that the fit finds are characteristic crystallite 
radii for the individual phases. In my published fits, I often include a 
factor that accounts for the fact that a phase is nanoscale in a crude way: it 
assumes the phase is present as spheres of uniform radius and applies a 
suppression factor to the coordination numbers of the paths as a function of 
that radius and of the absorber-scatterer distance. Even though this model is 
rarely strictly correct in terms of morphology and size dispersion, it gives a 
first-order approximation to the effect of the reduced coordination numbers 
found in nanoscale materials. Some people, notably Anatoly Frenkel, have 
published models which deal with this effect much more realistically. But those 
techniques also require more fitted variables and work best with fairly 
well-behaved samples. I tend to work with messy chemical samples of free 
nanoparticles where the assumption of sphericity isn't terrible, and the size 
dispersion is difficult to model accurately.


  At any rate, the project I'm currently working on includes a fitted 
characteristic radius of the type I've described for each of the phases in each 
of the samples. And again, it seems to work pretty well, yielding values that 
are plausible and largely stable.


  That's the background information. Now for my question:


  The effect of the characteristic radius on the spectrum is a strongly 
nonlinear function of that radius. For example, the difference between the 
EXAFS spectra of 100 nm and 1000 nm single crystals due to the coordination 
number effect is completely negligible. The difference between 1 nm and 10 nm 
crystals, however, is huge.


  So for very

Re: [Ifeffit] Asymmetric error bars in IFeffit

2010-10-22 Thread Frenkel, Anatoly
Matthew, if you relied on FEFF as one part of the complex calculation, where 
the other part was the experimentally extracted one, you could've as well done 
everything with just FEFF. Why didn't you?
A.



From: ifeffit-boun...@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov 
ifeffit-boun...@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov 
To: XAFS Analysis using Ifeffit ifeffit@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov 
Sent: Fri Oct 22 18:01:17 2010
Subject: Re: [Ifeffit] Asymmetric error bars in IFeffit 


Another reason, from my point of view, is that FEFF wasn't accurate enough to 
use on its own without references.  Also, it still can be argued that
the process of data reduction and filtering produces distortions which aren't 
captured by using FEFF alone.  Further, if one is comparing
very similar systems, e.g. bulk and nano of the same stuff, then with the 
exception of multiple scattering, the one system should be an ideal
reference for the other.
 
A trick I used to do:  Suppose, for instance, that I wanted to fit a shell of 
Zn surrounded by Si (not an actual case).  There's no Si-rich
zinc silicide to use as a reference, but it's not too hard to make theta-CuAl2, 
a compound in which all Cu atoms are surrounded by Al in the
first shell (this was done).  From this, amp and phase functions could be 
extracted which refer to Cu looking at Al (Cu-Al). Next, to transform this into
the desired Zn-Si, I would do FEFF calculations on identical structures with 
the atoms changed around and take:
 
A(Zn-Si, semi-empirical) = A(Cu-Al, expt)*[A(Zn-Si, FEFF)/A(Cu-Al, FEFF)]
phi(Zn-Si, semi-empirical) = phi(Cu-Al, expt)+[Phi(Zn-Si, FEFF)-phi(Cu-Al, 
FEFF)]
 
with A, phi being amplitude and phase for a given shell, and appropriate 
account being taken of the distance differences involved.
 
This makes sense if you consider A~ = A*exp(i*phi) to be one of the factors in 
a complex chi~ such that chi = Im(chi~), and you're
essentially making a correction to ln(A~).  Yes, this was low-rent and subject 
to errors, but it seemed to make sense provided
one didn't try to take it too far, for instance trying to change Al for Au or 
an oxide for a metal.
 
Brings back memories, not all of them fond :-)
mam

- Original Message - 
From: Frenkel, Anatoly mailto:fren...@bnl.gov  
To: ifeffit@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov 
Sent: Friday, October 22, 2010 2:38 PM
Subject: Re: [Ifeffit] Asymmetric error bars in IFeffit

On a related subject, now I understand why we use the concept of 
chemical transferability of amplitudes and phases by recycling the same FEFF 
path for different systems. The true reason is historic: back then it took one 
hour for one FEFF calculation
Anatoly




From: ifeffit-boun...@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov 
ifeffit-boun...@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov 
To: XAFS Analysis using Ifeffit ifeffit@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov 
Sent: Fri Oct 22 16:23:08 2010
Subject: [Ifeffit] Asymmetric error bars in IFeffit 


Hi all, 

I'm puzzling over an issue with my latest analysis, and it seemed like 
the sort of thing where this mailing list might have some good ideas.

First, a little background on the analysis. It is a simultaneous fit to 
four samples, made of various combinations of three phases. Mossbauer has 
established which samples include which phases. One of the phases itself has 
two crystallographically inequivalent  absorbing sites. The result is that the 
fit includes 12 Feff calculations, four data sets, and 1000 paths. Remarkably, 
everything works quite well, yielding a satisfying and informative fit. 
Depending on the details, the fit takes about 90 minutes to run. Kudos to 
Ifeffit and Horae for making such a thing possible!

Several of the parameters that the fit finds are characteristic 
crystallite radii for the individual phases. In my published fits, I often 
include a factor that accounts for the fact that a phase is nanoscale in a 
crude way: it assumes the phase is present as spheres of uniform radius and 
applies a suppression factor to the coordination numbers of the paths as a 
function of that radius and of the absorber-scatterer distance. Even though 
this model is rarely strictly correct in terms of morphology and size 
dispersion, it gives a first-order approximation to the effect of the reduced 
coordination numbers found in nanoscale materials. Some people, notably Anatoly 
Frenkel, have published models which deal with this effect much more 
realistically. But those techniques also require more fitted variables and work 
best with fairly well-behaved samples. I tend to work with messy chemical 
samples of free nanoparticles where the assumption of sphericity isn't 
terrible, and the size dispersion is difficult to model accurately.

At any rate, the project I'm currently working on includes a fitted 
characteristic radius