Simultaneous fast XAS/SAXS measurements in an energy-dispersive mode†

Abstract

X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) are common materials characterization tools at synchrotron radiation facilities used in many research fields. Since XAS can provide element-specific chemical states and local atomic structures and SAXS can provide nano-scale structural information, their complementary use is advantageous for a comprehensive understanding of multiscale phenomena. This paper presents a new method for simultaneous XAS/SAXS measurements with synchrotron radiation. The method employs a polychromatic X-ray beam as in the energy-dispersive XAS technique and captures both the transmission XAS spectrum and the SAXS intensity distribution with an area X-ray detector, which eliminates the energy scan in the conventional methods and realizes the simultaneous data acquisition in a shorter time. We succeeded in obtaining the atomic and nano-scale structures of Pt and Pt/Pd nanoparticles with a data acquisition time of 0.1 s, suggesting the potential for real-time observation of multiscale phenomena.