Acquisition of Thermo Scientific ARL Equinox 100 X-ray Diffractometer for near real-time acquisition of XRD patterns during time-resolved experiments

On behalf of the Electron Microscopy Center (EMC, College of Engineering, ASTeCC building), the PI is proposing the acquisition of a novel, benchtop X-ray diffraction (XRD) system from Thermo Fisher Scientific. Using this instrument, the crystal structure of samples can be determined rapidly, using a detector that allows simultaneous acquisition of the entire angular range for a given material. This enables nearly live XRD “structural imaging” for strongly diffracting materials, and generates complete XRD scans (with high count numbers) within a matter of minutes. This is extremely fast compared to traditional XRD systems (which typically require scan times of 30-90 minutes) and the proposed system offers the possibility of approaching in situ XRD capabilities. Although not truly in situ, the XRD scans would be sufficiently fast that time-resolved studies of structural change would be readily performed. For example, as a material is heated and undergoes phase transformations, the progress of these changes could be tracked using 1-minute scans, resulting in time “snapshots” every minute, and revealing the time progression of crystal structure changes. While several XRD systems exist at UK, located in various departments across campus, none of these offer the possibility of recording the entire XRD angular range simultaneously, and therefore none are suited for time-resolved studies. The Equinox 100 XRD system from Thermo Fisher Scientific will be housed at the EMC and be fully accessible to all users across campus, in the same way as other characterization equipment available in the center. Instrument maintenance and user training will be performed by existing EMC staff members. This new capability will unlock multiple research opportunities in energy research fields and will complement the other instruments available at the EMC.