A NEW POWDER DIFFRACTION METHOD FOR LINEAR DETECTORS

In this article we describe a new type of powder diffractometer that g ives a significant improvement in count rate over existing methods. Th e key to the new technique is the use of a flat, diffracted beam monoc hromator in combination with a position sensitive detector. The incide nt x rays fall on a flat plate or capillary sample and multiple diffra ction lines are reflected by the monochromator out of the equatorial p lane onto a position sensitive detector. Since the monochromator is tu ned for the incident beam energy, background from fluorescence or othe r scattering is eliminated and data can be recorded over a range of se veral degrees thereby providing a large improvement in counting effici ency over conventional diffractometers. This new method is also compar ed to a previous article which employed a focusing analyzer crystal an d position sensitive detector.