The three most widely used methods for analyzing atomic structures are evaluated by simulating crystalline solids and supercooled liquids. The local order parameter approach due to Volkov et al. [Phys. Rev. E 66, 061401 (2002)] fails in randomly perturbed body-centered-cubic environments, while the pair analysis method behaves as an approximate approach depending on how the neighborhood is defined. As to the Voronoi analysis method, we improve the procedure of Brostow et al. [Phys. Rev. B 57, 13448 (1998)] to eliminate distorted Voronoi faces and edges which originate from thermal vibrations and computational rounding errors. The improved procedure works robustly in face-centered-cubic, body-centered-cubic, and hexagonal close-packed environments. When the pair analysis technique and the Voronoi analysis method are applied to detect the microstructure and its evolution in supercooled liquids, qualitatively consistent results are attained.

• Received 30 March 2005

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.72.051202