Patent ID: 7844028
Filing Date: 2010-11-30
Classification: G01N

Abstract:
1. An X-ray diffraction method for the analysis of polycrystalline materials, the method comprising: (a) providing a polycrystalline material for analysis; (b) providing a polychromatic X-ray source, wherein the source produces X-rays by accelerating charged particles to energies of no more than 1 MeV; (c) collimating X-rays from the polychromatic X-ray source into a beam having a divergence in the range of from 10 (d) exposing at least a portion of the polycrystalline material to the collimated X-ray beam, whereby the beam is diffracted; (e) collecting at least some of the diffracted X-rays in an energy dispersive X-ray detector or array; and (f) analyzing the collected, diffracted x-rays; (g) quantitatively mapping a lattice parameter in the polycrystalline material using said analyzed, collected, diffracted x-rays.