A method has been developed for determining the stress profiles of neon‐implanted garnet layers. This determination is done nondestructively by computer simulation of rocking curves observed in x‐ray double‐crystal diffraction. The method has been tested for three different neon implantations at energies of 100, 300, and 500 keV with doses of 1×1014, 2×1014, and 1×1014ions/cm2, respectively. A comparison is made with an earlier destructive method based on stepwise etching of the layer. In addition the resulting profiles are compared to and show good agreement with profiles obtained from relative etching rates of the implanted films.