Open AccessCapabilities of through‐the‐substrate microdiffraction: application of Patterson‐function direct methods to synchrotron data from polished thin sections
Author(s) -
Rius Jordi,
Labrador Ana,
Crespi Anna,
Frontera Carlos,
Vallcorba Oriol,
Melgarejo Joan Carles
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of synchrotron radiation
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.172
H-Index - 99
ISSN - 1600-5775
DOI - 10.1107/s0909049511038830
Subject(s) - materials science , synchrotron , synchrotron radiation , substrate (aquarium) , aluminosilicate , crystal (programming language) , thin film , thin section , crystal structure , optics , crystallography , mineralogy , computer science , nanotechnology , physics , chemistry , geology , biochemistry , oceanography , programming language , catalysis
Some theoretical and practical aspects of the application of transmission microdiffraction (µXRD) to thin sections (≤30 µm thickness) of samples fixed or deposited on substrates are discussed. The principal characteristic of this technique is that the analysed micro‐sized region of the thin section is illuminated through the substrate (tts‐µXRD). Fields that can benefit from this are mineralogy, petrology and materials sciences since they often require in situ lateral studies to follow the evolution of crystalline phases or to determine new crystal structures in the case of phase transitions. The capability of tts‐µXRD for performing structural studies with synchrotron radiation is shown by two examples. The first example is a test case in which tts‐µXRD intensity data of pure aerinite are processed using Patterson‐function direct methods to directly solve the crystal structure. In the second example, tts‐µXRD is used to study the transformation of laumonite into a new aluminosilicate for which a crystal structure model is proposed.