Highly Diverse Fields of Application
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Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) is a non-invasive analytical technique to investigate the structure of non-crystalline or partly crystalline materials at the length scale of one to several hundred nanometres. In its combination with wide-angle scattering (SWAXS) the information range covers both the supra- or macromolecular domain as well as the interatomic distances in small molecules or crystals. While classical X-ray diffraction is applied mainly to crystalline systems, SAXS has the enormous advantage of being applicable also to non-crystalline materials, liquids, liquid crystals, amorphous powders. The fields of application cover any kind of material that shows density fluctuations at the nanoscale. Wherever nanostructure is value determining, SAXS is the method of choice to determine the structure parameters, such as particle or pore size, internal surface area, low-dimensional orientation and ordering. In the simultaneous SWAXS mode, information about amount and nature of crystallinity, relaxation processes and structural phase transitions can be obtained. With the highly brilliant point-focussing optics of S3-MICRO the application range extends also to the structure analysis of thin films on solid surfaces: the techniques of GISAXS (grazing-incidence SAXS) and X-ray reflectometry allow to determine the film thickness as well as the internal organization of the films in lateral and perpendicular dimension. Thus, the fields of application cover the following important areas:
Beyond the most frequent applications in R&D laboratories, the techniques of SAXS/ SWAXS/ GISAXS , previously the domain of specialized laboratories or large synchrotron radiation facilities, are also gaining interest in the fields of routine quality control (QC), safety and security screening, and process analytical technology (PAT) in chemical, food&feedstuff and pharmaceutical industry. |
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