NEW POSSIBILITIES FOR X-RAY DIFFRACTOMETRY: BRIGHTEN UP YOUR HOME-LAB

T. Samtleben , B. Hasse, J. Graf, J. Wiesmann, C. Michaelsen

Incoatec GmbH, Max-Planck-Straße 2, D-21502 Geesthacht, Germany

The latest developments in new X-ray microfocus sources lead to new possibilities in X-ray diffractometry. Using the new Incoatec Microfocus Source (IµS^TM) with the latest kind of two dimensional focussing Montel optics, the so called Quazar^TM optics, in combination with a two dimensional detector allows high quality diffractometry measurements with very good resolution of very small and weakly scattering samples in the home-lab in short time.

The advantages of the new 30 W air cooled IµS^TM with a focal spot size below 50 µm are presented. The use of IµS^TM is as easy as for all sealed tube systems and the performance exceeds typical combinations of traditional rotating anodes with multilayer optics. With a focussing optics IµS^TM achieves in a single crystal diffraction set-up a flux above 3·10⁸ cps in a 250 µm spot with Cu-K_a or a flux above 10⁷ cps in an 110 µm spot for Mo-K_a radiation. For SAXS experiments there is also an IµS^TM available with a 2 dimensional collimating optics.

Various examples of new application measurements on different X-ray samples are shown, like proteins, small molecules and SAXS, proving the broad field of applicability of the IµS. The figure shows the X-ray powder diffraction patterns of ibuprofen recorded with a typical parallel beam sealed tube set-up (left) and with IµS^TM (right) in transmission setup.

Figure 1: Diffraction pattern of ibuprofen recorded with a parallel beam sealed-tube set-up (left) and an IµS^TM (right), both with a Bruker D8 GADDS. The exposure times were 120 sec (left) and 15 sec (right) respectively.