New Materials and Nanomaterials

The nanotechnology builds the bridge across research fields as biology, chemistry, physics, and engineering. Thus, various well established analytical methods are applied in order to study, or modify the nano-cosmos, or finally to generate usable products.

Besides methods such as electron microscopy, the various scanning microscopy methods, IR-, UV-, or FTIR-spectroscopy, NMR, EPR, or MS, X-ray diffraction and scattering are considered important due to two essential reasons: X-ray diffraction is virtually non-destructive, and X-ray photons with a wavelength in the nm range are the ideal sensor for the nanocosmos.

X-ray diffraction offers a number of different dedicated methods to investigate nano-structures: X-ray Reflectometry (XRR) determines layer thickness, roughness, and density; High-Resolution X-ray Diffraction (HRXRD) helps to verify layer thickness, roughness, chemical composition, lattice spacing and mismatches, relaxation, etc.; X-ray diffuse scattering to determine lateral and transversal correlations, distortions, density, and porosity; in-plane gracing incidence diffraction (IP-GID) to study lateral correlations of thinnest organic and inorganic layers, and depth profiling; Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS) in transmission or gracing incidence SAXS (GI-SAXS) in reflection to determine the size, the shape, the distribution, orientation, and correlation of nano-particles present in solids or solutions.

For all different analytical tasks Bruker AXS offers a DIFFRACTION SOLUTION of its product portfolio D8 ADVANCE, D8 DISCOVER, D8 DISCOVER with GADDS, or the NANOSTAR. On top of this, Bruker AXS’ SUPER SPEED SOLUTIONS with integrated Turbo X-ray Source provide capabilities for a laboratory instrument which makes some travel to a synchrotron source obsolete.