Method · XRD
X-ray diffraction in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany
Crystal phases and structure, with texture, crystallite-size or strain analysis where the data and model support it. What it answers, what it cannot establish on its own, what a laboratory will ask, and how many Dutch, Belgian and German facilities publish it.
What it answers
- Which crystalline phases are present in a powder, a bulk material or a film?
- Is crystalline material detectable in a film, and does it have a preferred orientation?
- Did heat treatment change the phase, crystallite size or residual strain?
What it cannot establish alone
- Identify every minor or poorly crystalline phase; peak overlap, texture and detection limits affect the result.
- Determine elemental composition from a diffraction pattern alone.
- Equate crystallite size with particle size, or separate size broadening from strain without an appropriate analysis.
- Prove that a thin film is wholly amorphous solely because no peaks were detected in one measurement geometry.
Before you contact a laboratory
What a laboratory will ask.
A laboratory can say whether it can help only when these are known. Unknowns are fine; say so.
- Expected materials or phases and whether the sample is a powder, bulk part or thin film.
- Substrate and film thickness, sample dimensions and whether powdering is allowed.
- Phase identification, phase fraction, texture or strain objective, and any reference pattern.
- Whether the substrate dominates the signal and a grazing-incidence or other specialised geometry is needed.
A question a laboratory can answer
A 300 nm titanium oxide film on glass should be anatase after annealing at 450 °C. We want to confirm the phase on two annealed films and one as-deposited film, with grazing incidence if needed.
Potential Dutch, Belgian and German facilities
61 facilities publish XRD capability in Berlin, Freiburg, Bayreuth, Bremerhaven, Brussels, Dresden, Enschede, Hamburg, Jena, Mons, Aachen, Aalen, Amsterdam, Bad Homburg v. d. Höhe, Bremen, Darmstadt, Delft, Denkendorf, Diepenbeek, Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Eindhoven, Esslingen am Neckar, Frankfurt (Oder), Freiberg, Ghent, Greifswald, Halle (Saale), Hannover, Ilmenau, Ingolstadt, Kaiserslautern, Kiel, Krefeld, Leuven, Liège, Magdeburg, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Namur, Noordwijk, Oberhausen, Saarbrücken, Schwäbisch Gmünd, Stuttgart, Velp, Wedel and Wismar.
Leads are based on published capabilities; current suitability and availability must be confirmed with the laboratory.
Describe your sample and question. The first answer is free and needs no account; laboratory names are shown in a free workspace.