Diffuse scattering data acquisition techniques

Techniques are presented for acquiring and reducing X-ray diffuse scatterin g data from disordered crystalline materials. These methods are part of a c omprehensive approach to study disorder in novel quasicrystalline phases as a function of temperature, but can be applied without further adaptation t o periodic crystalline systems. By fully exploiting the possibilities of mo dern two-dimensional X-ray detector systems - using imaging plates or charg e coupled devices (CCD) - large volumes of reciprocal space can be measured in a quantitative and rapid way. For this purpose, the classical rotation method for collecting integrated Bragg intensities is extended for acquirin g quasi-continuous diffuse diffraction data. A new high-temperature furnace and helium beam path, designed for the diffraction geometry of the rotatio n method, are integral parts of the diffraction system. New methods are pre sented for handling the reduction of diffuse diffraction data from area det ectors. One of the key techniques is the reconstruction of arbitrary slices and volumes in reciprocal space from a single series of rotation images ta ken from an arbitrarily oriented single-crystal (reciprocal space mapping).