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X-ray diffraction // 12.04.2022 // DECTRIS

Celebrating 110 Years of Laue's Diffraction Experiment

Left: Laue pattern of aircraft blade made of AM1 alloy collected with a PILATUS3 detector. Image shown with colors to extend dynamic range. Red pixels show increased count values, but do not indicate saturation. Right: Laue pattern of aircraft blade made of AM1 alloy collected with a conventional detector. Image shown with colors to extend dynamic range. Red pixels show increased count values.

A 5-minute read

On April 12, 1912, von Laue, Knipping, and Friedrich set up a deceivingly simple experiment: they passed X-rays through salt crystals and examined the resulting X-ray patterns. These experiments not only gave evidence of X-rays’ wave-like nature, but also validated the concept of a crystal lattice, so the trio was awarded a Nobel Prize in physics (1914). On the occasion of the 110th anniversary of Laue’s experiment, we are sharing some papers and application notes that present the use of Laue diffraction at synchrotron sources and in laboratories.

The famous relations between the scattering vector and the crystals are summarized in “Laue equations”, but Mr. von Laue is equally frequently mentioned when referring to X-ray diffraction (XRD) that uses a polychromatic light. By exploiting range of X-ray energies, Laue diffraction allows for collecting lots of XRD data in a single shot, whereas each diffraction spot is assigned to X-ray energy. Although indexing of Laue patterns is not trivial, the technique is widely used for solving a number of problems in materials science. This particularly refers to problems that require all data to be collected simultaneously, such as in-situ and operando studies, crystal orientation determination, and strain mapping.

Here is our pick of some papers and application notes that present the use of Laue diffraction at synchrotron sources and in laboratories.

Using Laue diffraction for material characterization in industry comes with many challenges: time, quality assurance, and variety of samples. However, novel experimental setups in a lab push towards improvements on all levels:  shorter exposure times, evaluating thicker samples, and discerning very weak reflections. In these two examples, a standard source is combined with a PILATUS3 CdTe detector:

At synchrotron sources, Laue diffraction is usually carried out at beamlines that combine a very small beam with a large-area detector. This paper describes theories and practice of Laue diffraction at synchrotron sources and provides many examples of its application:  

Happy reading!