SPring-8, the large synchrotron radiation facility

Inquiry number

SOL-0000000932

Beamline

BL02B2 (Powder Diffraction)

Scientific keywords

A. Sample category	inorganic material
B. Sample category (detail)	semiconductor, solid-state crystal, crystal
C. Technique	X-ray diffraction
D. Technique (detail)	powder diffraction
E. Particular condition	room temperature
F. Photon energy	X-ray (4-40 keV)
G. Target information	chemical bonding, structure analysis, crystal structure, function and structure, charge density

Industrial keywords

level 1---Application area	Semiconductor, environment, Chemical product, industrial material
level 2---Target
level 3---Target (detail)
level 4---Obtainable information	d-spacing (lattice parameter), interatomic distance, crystal structure
level 5---Technique	diffraction

Classification

A80.12 semiconductor, A80.30 inorganic material, A80.40 environmental materials, A80.42 energy, resource, M10.20 powder diffraction

Body text

Powder diffraction is a powerful technique to study crystal structures. Using this technique, one can measure structural parameters such as lattice parameters, atomic positions, etc of crystalline materials. By using synchrotron radiation one can also obtain charge density level structures closely related with physical properties as well as structural parameters. The figure shows charge density distributions obtained by analyzing diffraction data of a high-efficient thermoelectric material Zn₄Sb₃. These data reveal the fact that the structure contains significant disorder with zinc atoms distributed over multiple positions.

Fig. Charge densities of Zn₄Sb₃.

[ J. G. Snyder, M. Christensen, E. Nishibori, T. Cailat and B. B. Iversen, Nature Materials 3, 458-463 (2004), Fig. 3,
©2004 Nature Publishing Group ]

Source of the figure

Original paper/Journal article

Journal title

Nature Materials, 3 (2004) 458.

Figure No.

3

Technique

Powder diffraction using synchrotron radiation is a powerful technique to study crystal structures. The technique is applicable to materials with disordered atoms and provides knowledge about the precise disordered structures.

Fig. A large Debye-Scherrer camera.

Source of the figure

Presentation material for Beamline Report

Required time for experimental setup

1 hour(s)

Instruments

Instrument	Purpose	Performance
Large Debye-Scherrer camera	Powder diffraction	Camera radius: 286.48mm, Temperature: 15-1000K

References

Document name
G. J. Snyder et al., Nature Materials, 3 (2004) 458.

Related experimental techniques

Single crystal structure analysis

Questionnaire

The measurement was possible only in SPring-8. Impossible or very difficult in other facilities.
This solution is an application of a main instrument of the beamline.
Similar experiments account for more than 30% of the beamline's subject.

Ease of measurement

Middle

Ease of analysis

Middle

How many shifts were needed for taking whole data in the figure?

Two-three shifts