X-ray diffractometer for structural studies of surfaces and interfaces

A novel high-precision X-ray diffractometer for structural studies of crystal surfaces and interfaces is presented. In the construction of this instrument, separate detector and sample circles were adopted. This arrangement allows either horizontal or vertical sample geometries to be combined with a variety of sample chambers. The base of the diffractometer is a hexapod with six hydraulic telescopic struts, which confer six degrees of freedom on the platform. This design replaces the conventional stack of translation and rotation stages for aligning the sample with the X-ray beam. An innovative fast control and data acquisition system eliminates the dead time associated with reorienting a conventional diffractometer. With this new system, the time it takes to perform angular scans is limited only by the available counting rate.