X-ray Diffraction: Special Applications
Quick Specs
- Normal operating power of 45 kV, 40 mA
- Equipped with focusing and parallel beam optics
- Principle application for analysis of powder specimens
Resources
- American Mineralogist Crystal Structure Database
- Anton-Paar
- Bede X-ray Metrology
- Collaborative Computational Project Number 14 (CCP14) for Single Crystal and Powder Diffraction
- International Centre for Diffraction Data
- International Union of Crystallography
- Materials Data Inc.
- Mineralogy Database
- PANalytical (formerly Philips Analytical)
- WWW-MINCRYST
Three X-ray diffraction systems (XRD) are available for analysis of crystalline materials:
- General purpose XRD system for phase analysis of polycrystalline samples
- Special applications XRD system with high- and low-temperature sample stages, plus focusing and parallel beam optics
- Four-circle XRD system with high-resolution optics (HRXRD, Double Crystal, or Triple-Axis geometry) for studying large-face single crystals and epitaxial thin films.
System Configurations and Operational Overview
All work with the following systems and in EMSL labs must be performed in compliance with EMSL practices and permits.
The special applications X-ray diffractometer is a Philips X'Pert MPD system with a vertical Θ-Θ goniometer (220 mm radius). The X-ray source is a long-fine-focus, ceramic X-ray tube with Cu anode. Normal operating power is 45 kV, 40 mA (1.8 kW). This instrument is equipped with two beam paths: focusing and parallel beam optics. The focusing optics consist of programmable divergence, anti-scatter, and receiving slits, incident and diffracted beam soller slits, a curved graphite diffracted beam monochromator, and a proportional counter detector. The principal application of this setup is phase analysis of powder specimens. The parallel beam optics consist of a Göbel mirror combined with a 0.27 radian parallel plate collimator, flat graphite diffracted beam monochromator, and proportional counter detector. Applications of the parallel beam setup include phase analysis of polycrystalline thin films and X-ray reflectivity (XRR).
For ambient X-ray diffraction measurements, the multi-purpose sample stage supports typical cavity-type powder mounts and will also accommodate monolithic specimens of a wide variety of sizes and shapes. Available non-ambient sample stages include an Anton-Paar TTK 450 (-193 °C to +400 °C) and an Anton-Paar HTK 1200 (25 °C to +1000 °C) with integral sample spinner. These non-ambient sample stages can accommodate powder specimens and flat monolithic solids (e.g., thin film specimens).
Analysis Software
The principal XRD data analysis program is JADE (Materials Data Inc., Livermore, CA.). JADE supports comprehensive analysis of XRD patterns, including phase identification, peak profile fitting, indexing, unit cell refinement, Rietveld analysis, etc. Available software for thin film applications includes the Bede programs RADS and REFS, plus the Philips programs X'Pert Texture, X'Pert Epitaxy, and WINGIXA.
Reference Database
The principal reference database is the Powder Diffraction File (International Centre for Diffraction Data, Newtown Square, PA.).
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