X-Ray Imaging of Polycrystalline and Amorphous Materials

A novel method for obtaining position resolved information simultaneously from an entire plane of a polycrystalline or amorphous sample using the diffracted radiation or fluorescence has been developed. It makes use of a microchannelplate as a collimator in front of a position sensitive detector (CCDcamera). Experiments may be performed either in transmission or in reflection geometry. In the first case a ‘flat’ parallel beam illuminates a slice through the sample while in the second case the surface of the specimen is illuminated by a broad beam. Typical fields of application are non-destructive investigations of the distribution of polycrystalline components in composites, reciprocal space mapping to determine the mutual influence of strain and orientation in adjacent grains in a polycrystalline material and analysis of the distribution of chemical elements or even valence states via their fluorescence.