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In this work a double-crystal setup is employed to study compound refractive lenses made of single-crystal diamond. The point spread function of the lens is calculated taking into account the lens transmission, the wavefront aberrations, and the ultra-small-angle broadening of the X-ray beam. It is shown that, similarly to the wavefront aberrations, the ultra-small-angle scattering effects can significantly reduce the intensity gain and increase the focal spot size. The suggested approach can be particularly useful for the characterization of refractive X-ray lenses composed of many tens of unit lenses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A procedure for obtaining three-dimensionally resolved reciprocal-space maps in a skew X-ray diffraction geometry is described. The geometry allows tuning of the information depth in the range from tens of micrometres for symmetric skew diffraction down to tens of nanometres for strongly asymmetric skew geometries, where the angle of incidence is below the critical angle of total external reflection. The diffraction data are processed using a rotation matrix formalism. The whole three-dimensional reciprocal-space map can be measured by performing a single azimuthal rotation of the sample and using a two-dimensional detector, while keeping the angle of incidence and the X-ray information depth fixed (FIXD method). Having a high surface sensitivity under grazing-incidence conditions, the FIXD method can be applied to a large variety of Bragg reflections, particularly polar ones, which provide information on strain and chemical composition separately. In contrast with conventional grazing-incidence diffraction, the FIXD approach reveals, in addition to the lateral (in-plane) components, the vertical (out-of-plane) component of the strain field, and therefore allows the separation of the scattering contributions of strained epitaxial nanostructures by their vertical misfit. The potential of FIXD is demonstrated by resolving the diffraction signal from a single layer of InGaN quantum dots grown on a GaN buffer layer. The FIXD approach is suited to the study of free-standing and covered near-surface nano-objects, as well as vertically extended multilayer structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantitative characterization of local strain in silicon wafers is critical in view of issues such as wafer handling during manufacturing and strain engineering. In this work, full-field X-ray microdiffraction imaging using synchrotron radiation is employed to investigate the long-range distribution of strain fields in silicon wafers induced by indents under different conditions in order to simulate wafer fabrication damage. The technique provides a detailed quantitative mapping of strain and defect characterization at the micrometer spatial resolution and holds some advantages over conventional methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The retrieval of spatially resolved atomic displacements is investigated via the phases of the direct(real)-space image reconstructed from the strained crystal's coherent X-ray diffraction pattern. It is demonstrated that limiting the spatial variation of the first- and second-order spatial displacement derivatives improves convergence of the iterative phase-retrieval algorithm for displacements reconstructions to the true solution. This approach is exploited to retrieve the displacement in a periodic array of silicon lines isolated by silicon dioxide filled trenches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While channel-cut crystals, in which the diffracting surfaces in an asymmetric cut are kept parallel, can provide beam collimation and spectral beam shaping, they can in addition provide beam compression or expansion if the cut is V-shaped. The compression/expansion ratio depends in this case on the total asymmetry factor. If the Ge(220) diffraction planes and a total asymmetry factor in excess of 10 are used, the rocking curves of two diffractors will have a sufficient overlap only if the second diffractor is tuned slightly with respect to the first one. This study compares and analyses several ways of overcoming this mismatch, which is due to refraction, when the Cu Kα1 beam is compressed 21-fold in a V21 monochromator. A more than sixfold intensity increase was obtained if the matching was improved either by a compositional variation or by a thermal deformation. This provided an intensity gain compared with the use of a simple slit in a symmetrical channel-cut monochromator. The first attempt to overcome the mismatch by introducing different types of X-ray prisms for the required beam deflection is described as well. The performance of the V-shaped monochromators is demonstrated in two applications. A narrow collimated monochromatic beam obtained in the beam compressing mode was used for high-resolution grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering measurements of a silicon sample with corrupted surface. In addition, a two-dimensional Bragg magnifier, based on two crossed V15 channel monochromators in beam expansion mode and tuned by means of unequal asymmetries, was successfully applied to high-resolution imaging of test structures in combination with a Medipix detector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-resolution X-ray diffraction in coplanar and noncoplanar geometries has been used to investigate the influence of an SiN x nano-mask in the reduction of the threading dislocation (TD) density of high-quality AlGaN epitaxial layers grown on sapphire substrates. Our developed model, based on a Monte Carlo method, was applied to the simulation of the reciprocal-space maps of a two-layer system. Good agreement was found between the simulation and the experimental data, leading to an accurate determination of the dislocation densities as a function of the overgrowth layer thickness. The efficiency of the SiN x nano-mask was defined as the ratio of the TD densities in the AlGaN layers below and above the mask. A significant improvement in the AlGaN layer quality was achieved by increasing the overgrowth layer thickness, and a TD density reduction scaling law was established. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate spatial cross-correlations between two constituents, both belonging to the same microstructure. These investigations are based on two approaches: one via the measurement of the cross-correlation function and the other uses the spatial distances between the constituents. The cross-correlation function can be measured using the fast Fourier transform, whereas the distances are determined via the Euclidean distance transform. The characteristics are derived from volume images obtained by synchrotron microtomography. As an example we consider pore formation in metallic foams, knowledge of which is important to control the foam production process. For this example, we discuss the spatial cross-correlation between the pore space and the blowing agent particles in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigations of pore coalescence and individual cell wall collapse in an expanding liquid metal foam by means of X-ray radioscopy with spatio-temporal micro-resolution are reported. By using white synchrotron radiation for imaging, the rupture of a film and the subsequent merger of two neighbouring bubbles could be recorded with a time sampling rate of 40000 frames s[sup-1] (25 Its exposure time) and a spatial sampling rate of 20 μm. The rupture time of a cell wall was found to be in the range of 300 p.s. This value is in agreement with theoretical considerations which assume an inertia-dominated rupture time of cell walls in liquid metal foams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]