X-ray Reciprocal-Lattice Space Imaging Method for Quick analysis of Buried Crystalline Nanostructure - a Diffraction Method Fixed at an Angular Position

Abstract

The x-ray reciprocal-lattice space imaging (X-ReSI) method is a single-exposure x-ray diffraction technique which records the reciprocal-lattice pattern of a fixed crystalline nanostructure using a 2D detector. The typical exposure time is a few seconds to a few minutes. We describe the methodology, instrumentation, and expressions used for geometrical analysis in this technique. The technique was applied to study buried Bi nanoline structures. The results of the application reveal that line structures in samples capped with an amorphous Si layer and having no cap layers still remained with a non-detectable amount of the 2 x n atomic structures though Bi nanolines embeded in Si was found to have a 2 x n superstructure having Bi dimer bonds. This underscores the strength of the x-ray reciprocal-lattice space imaging method as a point-and-shoot technique for quick structural analysis.

Application of synchrotron-based reciprocal-space mapping at a fixed angular position to identification of crystal symmetry of Bi4Ti3O12epitaxial thin films

“…Firstly, we tried to detect some Bragg diffraction positions using a multi-axis diffractometer in order to distinguish between the orthorhombic and the monoclinic structures using an incident photon energy of 12.4 keV. Secondly, we used a modified method of synchrotron-based reciprocal-space mapping (Sakata et al, 2004(Sakata et al, , 2005(Sakata et al, , 2008 in order to ascertain whether as many diffraction spots as possible can be explained consistently using the structure inferred from the first step. In this step, we used a photon energy of 25 keV and a two-dimensional detector, namely an imaging plate, with a camera distance of 133 mm.…”

“…The reciprocal-lattice vector is also expressed as q L on the basis of an X L Y L Z L Cartesian-coordinate laboratory system. Details of the conversion between the sample system and the Cartesiancoordinate laboratory system were described by Sakata et al (2008). A straight line connecting the starting point, S, of the incident wavevector K 0 and point Q on the Ewald sphere goes through the intersection P (x p , y p ) on a cylindrically shaped two-dimensional detector.…”