Speaker
Description
X-ray scattering and diffraction techniques are indispensable tools in modern materials research, providing complementary information on phase composition, crystal structure, microstructure, morphology, and defects over a broad range of length scales. Continuous advances in laboratory X-ray instrumentation, including high-brilliance X-ray sources, improved X-ray optics, and fast, low-noise area detectors, have significantly expanded the capabilities of laboratory-based experiments. As a result, many studies that previously required access to synchrotron facilities can now be performed using state-of-the-art laboratory instruments.
This lecture presents the experimental capabilities of our X-ray laboratory and illustrates them through selected examples from contemporary materials research, with particular emphasis on advanced and less commonly applied techniques. Our instrumentation covers a reciprocal-space range from q = 0.003 to 21 Å⁻¹, corresponding to real-space dimensions of approximately 0.03–200 nm, enabling structural characterization across multiple length scales. The laboratory supports a wide spectrum of X-ray scattering experiments on single crystals, polycrystalline bulk and powder materials, nanocrystalline and amorphous systems, thin films, multilayers, and epitaxial structures. Measurements can be performed using Co, Cu, Mo, or Ag radiation in Bragg–Brentano, parallel-beam, high-resolution, coplanar, and non-coplanar (in-plane) geometries. A variety of sample environments, including low- and high-temperature stages, tensile and compression devices, and reaction chambers, enable both in-situ and operando investigations.
The available methodologies include crystal structure solution and refinement, qualitative and quantitative phase analysis, texture and residual stress analysis, X-ray reflectivity, rocking-curve measurements, reciprocal-space mapping, total scattering with pair distribution function analysis, small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), and grazing-incidence SAXS (GISAXS).
Representative applications include structural characterization of nanocrystalline thin films and coatings, combined XRD/SAXS studies of metallic nanomaterials, investigations of iron-based nanocomposites for pharmaceutical applications, high-pressure X-ray diffraction, in-situ studies at elevated and low temperatures, and in-operando characterization of lithium-ion batteries and fuel cells. These examples demonstrate the versatility of modern laboratory X-ray techniques and their capability to address a broad range of contemporary materials science challenges.
