X-ray diffraction methods for structural diagnostics of materials: progress and achievements

Abstract

The development of X-ray diffractometry at the turn of the 21st century is presented. The review covers instrumentation development for structural studies based on the use of both standard continuously radiating X-ray generators and state-of-the-art sources of ultrashort and ultra-bright X-ray pulses. The latter technique enables investigation of the structural dynamics of condensed matter in a 4D space–time continuum with a resolution reaching a tenth of a femtosecond. New engineering approaches to enhancing the sensitivity, accuracy, and efficiency of X-ray diffraction experiments are discussed, including new and promising X-rays sources, reflective collimating and focusing X-ray optical devices, and fast low-noise and radiation-resistant position-sensitive X-ray detectors, as well as a new generation of X-ray diffractometers developed based on these elements. The presentation is focused on modern engineering solutions that enable academic and applied-research laboratories to perform X-ray diffraction studies on-site, which earlier were only feasible using synchrotron radiation sources at international resource sharing centers.

Diagnostics of Nanosystems with the Use of Ultrashort X-Ray Pulses: Theory and Experiment (Brief Review)

“…We note that , where is the structure factor used in the theory of XRDA. As often done [14], Eqs. (3) can be represented in terms of , but this is inconvenient in the consideration below.…”

“…There are many methods of generation of USPs [13][14][15][16][17]. Below, we consider only five main sources of X-ray USPs.…”

“…These sources of X-ray USPs involve the inverse Compton scattering of laser photons by a relativistic electron beam (usually, a counterpropagating beam) in small cyclic or linear accelerators [14]. In this case, infrared and optical radiation is transformed to X-rays and gamma-ray photons.…”

“…The scattering intensity was calculated by the expression where is the frequency density of scattered states and is the perturbation of the wavefunction of the system under study in the field of the USP (first order of perturbation theory). Representing the pulse field strength in the form , where specifies the pulse shape, we obtain the expression (14) Here, is the intensity of the incident USP; ; is the polarization factor, where and are the polarizations;…”

Effective line X-ray generation by chirped femtosecond laser pulses interaction with copper target at local helium flow

“…Currently, X-ray radiation is more and more widely used in solid-state physics, crystallography, microscopy, spectroscopy, visualization and for other analytical purposes [1][2][3]. It is essential that the papers focused on the investigations of condensed media in non-equilibrium states often only address relatively low-frequency atomic displacements.…”