X-Ray Diffraction

Almost all recent developments in nature and materials sciences are based on the investigation and understanding of nano-scaled properties of matter. Many methods have been developed to characterise samples on the nano-scale and have been optimised over the last years. The most outstanding advancements over many orders of magnitude have been achieved in photon based methods for scattering, diffraction and spectroscopy, in particular with the use of X-ray radiation. The parameter to describe the quality of an X-ray source is the brilliance. It determines the resolving power of X-ray scattering and diffraction experiments and is a measure of the number of photons travelling through a particular area with at a well-defined divergence of the beam and fixed photon energy spread. At modern 3rd generation X-ray sources synchrotron radiation sources or X-ray lasers the brilliance is extraordinary high as compared to earlier X-ray sources, leading to a currently unprecedented quality in X-ray data. This fact has been recognized world wide and consequently, many large scale X-ray sources are under construction or have recently become operational. Thus, in the future synchrotron based X-ray experiments will become more available for scientists to carry out research at the nano-scale. In this book the new developments in X-ray diffraction and scattering methods will be presented. High resolution X-ray diffraction and scattering is a key tool for structure analysis not only in bulk materials but also at surfaces and buried interfaces from the sub-nanometre range to micrometers. We provide an overview of current diffraction and scattering methods available at modern synchrotron sources. Bulk and interface investigations of solid and liquid matter will be discussed and illustrated with current research examples. The important characteristics of the sources, experimental set up and new detector developments will be presented. Future exploitation of X-ray free electron lasers for diffraction applications will also be considered.