No Arabic abstract
We report the design and construction of a novel soft x-ray diffractometer installed at Diamond Light Source. The beamline endstation RASOR is constructed for general users and designed primarily for the study of single crystal diffraction and thin film reflectivity. The instrument is comprised of a limited three circle ({theta}, 2{theta}, {chi}) diffractometer with an additional removable rotation ({phi}) stage. It is equipped with a liquid helium cryostat, and post-scatter polarization analysis. Motorised motions are provided for the precise positioning of the sample onto the diffractometer centre of rotation, and for positioning the centre of rotation onto the x-ray beam. The functions of the instrument have been tested at Diamond Light Source, and initial test measurements are provided, demonstrating the potential of the instrument.
We describe an instrument that exploits the ongoing revolution in synchrotron sources, optics, and detectors to enable in situ studies of metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) growth of III-nitride materials using coherent x-ray methods. The system includes high-resolution positioning of the sample and detector including full rotations, an x-ray transparent chamber wall for incident and diffracted beam access over a wide angular range, and minimal thermal sample motion, giving the sub-micron positional stability and reproducibility needed for coherent x-ray studies. The instrument enables surface x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy, microbeam diffraction, and coherent diffraction imaging of atomic-scale surface and film structure and dynamics during growth, to provide fundamental understanding of MOVPE processes.
We have developed a pulsed magnet system with panoramic access for synchrotron x-ray diffraction in magnetic fields up to 31T and at low temperature down to 1.5 K. The apparatus consists of a split-pair magnet, a liquid nitrogen bath to cool the pulsed coil, and a helium cryostat allowing sample temperatures from 1.5 up to 250 K. Using a 1.15MJ mobile generator, magnetic field pulses of 60 ms length were generated in the magnet, with a rise time of 16.5 ms and a repetition rate of 2 pulses/hour at 31 T. The setup was validated for single crystal diffraction on the ESRF beamline ID06.
The highly transient nature of shock loading and pronounced microstructure effects on dynamic materials response call for {it in situ}, temporally and spatially resolved, x-ray-based diagnostics. Third-generation synchrotron x-ray sources are advantageous for x-ray phase contrast imaging (PCI) and diffraction under dynamic loading, due to their high photon energy, high photon fluxes, high coherency, and high pulse repetition rates. The feasibility of bulk-scale gas gun shock experiments with dynamic x-ray PCI and diffraction measurements was investigated at the beamline 32ID-B of the Advanced Photon Source. The x-ray beam characteristics, experimental setup, x-ray diagnostics, and static and dynamic test results are described. We demonstrate ultrafast, multiframe, single-pulse PCI measurements with unprecedented temporal ($<$100 ps) and spatial ($sim$2 $mu$m) resolutions for bulk-scale shock experiments, as well as single-pulse dynamic Laue diffraction. The results not only substantiate the potential of synchrotron-based experiments for addressing a variety of shock physics problems, but also allow us to identify the technical challenges related to image detection, x-ray source, and dynamic loading.
Resonant soft x-ray scattering (RSXS) is a leading probe of valence band order in materials best known for detecting charge density wave order in the copper-oxide superconductors. One of the biggest limitations on the RSXS technique is the presence of a severe fluorescence background which, like the RSXS cross section itself, is enhanced under resonant conditions. This background prevents the study of weak signals such as diffuse scattering from glassy or fluctuating order that is spread widely over momentum space. Recent advances in superconducting transition edge sensor (TES) detectors have led to major improvements in energy resolution and detection efficiency in the soft x-ray range. Here, we perform a RSXS study of stripe-ordered La$_{2-x}$Ba$_x$CuO$_4$ at the Cu $L_{3/2}$ edge (932.2 eV) using a TES detector with 1.5 eV resolution, to evaluate its utility for mitigating the fluorescence background problem. We find that, for suitable degree of detuning from the resonance, the TES rejects the fluorescence background, leading to a 5 to 10 times improvement in the statistical quality of the data compared to an equivalent, energy-integrated measurement. We conclude that a TES presents a promising approach to reducing background in RSXS studies and may lead to new discoveries in materials exhibiting valence band order that is fluctuating or glassy.
We studied the (001/2) diffraction peak in the low-temperature phase of magnetite (Fe3O4) using resonant soft x-ray diffraction (RSXD) at the Fe-L2,3 and O-K resonance. We studied both molecular-beam-epitaxy (MBE) grown thin films and in-situ cleaved single crystals. From the comparison we have been able to determine quantitatively the contribution of intrinsic absorption effects, thereby arriving at a consistent result for the (001/2) diffraction peak spectrum. Our data also allow for the identification of extrinsic effects, e.g. for a detailed modeling of the spectra in case a dead surface layer is present that is only absorbing photons but does not contribute to the scattering signal.