Welcome

Monday, August 3 marks the beginning of the 64th annual conference on applications of X-ray analysis: The Denver X-ray Conference. As this event provides a unique mixture of sessions on training, education, applications and papers about state-of-the-art techniques and future developments in X-ray analysis, we encourage you to attend.

Speaking of state-of-the-art, this week marks the introduction of the Rigaku Katana, a handheld laser induced breakdown (LIBS) spectrometer designed for identification of the most difficult alloy grades.

For your continuing education, the final installment of the X-ray diffraction Thin Film Training Textbook is published. Our laboratory in the spotlight features Dr. Brandon Q. Mercado, the X-ray facility manager of the Chemical and Biological Instrumentation Center (CBIC) at Yale University. Enjoy the newsletter.

R.C. Tisdale, Ph.D. – Editor

Thin Film Training Textbook High-resolution X-ray Diffraction Method (Part 19) Rigaku Corporation This is the final installment of the X-ray diffraction Thin Film Training Textbook. In this section we will discuss the Laue function — a function incorporated into the crystal structure factor and expresses the relationship between crystallinity and angular distribution of the scattered X-rays. For more >

Featured XRD Rigaku Journal Article A current perspective of the state-of-the-art in stress analysis Rigaku Corporation This article discusses recent methods in X-ray stress analysis. The authors have selected three examples thought to be the most practical from among the many X-ray stress measurement and analysis methods. The examples of analyses presented are: (1) residual stress measurement using the multiple-hkl method, (2) residual stress measurement of samples with shear stress in the depth direction, and (3) residual stress measurement and line-broadening of diffraction in samples with fibre texture using the crystallite strain analysis method. For more >

Featured XRD Product Introduction AutoMATE II – Micro area X-ray stress measurement system Rigaku Corporation We have improved the conventional micro area stress measurement system (AutoMATE) by replacing the gas flowing Position Sensitive Proportional Counter (PSPC) detector with a semiconductor detector, the D/teX Ultra 1000. This new AutoMATE II provides the user with new functions, high sensitivity, high counting rate and good energy resolution. For more >

XRD Application Note Identification of the crystal form of the active pharmaceutical ingredient in a tablet Rigaku Corporation Many active pharmaceutical ingredients have multiple crystal forms, and it is known that solubility and bioavailability vary depending on the crystal form. In the drug manufacturing process, active ingredients may sometimes undergo a crystalline phase transition to another crystal form, due to factors such as heat, light, humidity or pressure, and there is a need to check what crystal form the ingredient is in, in its final product state. For more >

WDXRF Application Note Chlorine Analysis of Aluminosilicate for Fluid Catalytic Cracking Catalyst by WDXRF Rigaku Corporation It is important to control the chlorine content of FCC catalyst to guard against the formation of hazardous organo-chloride compounds such as dioxins and to prevent degradation of catalytic activity. This application note documents the performance of a Rigaku ZSX Primus series spectrometer for analysis of chlorine in FCC aluminosilicate catalyst. For more >

EDXRF Application Note Analysis of Iron Concentrates Applied Rigaku Technologies Ore is ground, cleaned, separated and concentrated in preparation for smelting. Impurities such as silicon dioxide and sulfur are considered penalty elements as they can adversely affect the quality of the beneficiation, concentrating and smelting processes, as well as the final properties of the iron or steel being produced. Rigaku NEX QC+ offers technicians a fast and simple means of monitoring elemental composition of ores and concentrates, and is a tool that can be used for quality checks throughout the entire smelting process. For more >

Raman Application Note Drug Product Identification Using Handheld Raman Rigaku Raman Technologies Handheld Raman is an attractive ID method because it provides a portable measurement that can distinguish different concentrations of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) in drug product (DP) doses and placebos with little or no sample preparation. Progeny, a handheld Raman analyzer with 1064 nm excitation, is less prone to fluorescence interference typically experienced by handheld analyzers with 785 nm excitation. For more >

Lab in the Spotlight Chemical and Biophysical Instrumentation Center at Yale University Dr. Brandon Q. Mercado is the X-ray facility manager of the Chemical and Biological Instrumentation Center (CBIC) at Yale University. The CBIC owns an SCXmini and an R-AXIS SPIDER with Mo target for small molecule crystallography and a MicroMax-007 HF microfocus rotating anode with Cu target equipped with a Saturn 944 CCD detector for protein crystallography. For more >

Scientific Book Reviews By Joseph D. Ferrara, Ph.D., Rigaku Chief Science Officer This month I am doing a series of short reviews of what I've been reading for fun this summer. Next month I'll provide a review of Hammond's 4th edition of The Basics of Crystallography and Diffraction. For more >

Material Analysis in the News News for July 2015 July 1, 2015. Scientists from École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne have now developed a simple, unconventional method to fabricate high-quality, efficient solar panels for direct solar hydrogen production with low cost. Kevin Sivula and colleagues at EPFL addressed this problem with an innovative and cheap method that uses the boundary between two non-mixing liquids. July 6, 2015. An international team of scientists, led by Jennifer Mass, Winterthur Museum's senior scientist and an affiliated University of Delaware faculty member, has announced new findings on why a bright yellow pigment favored a century ago by master artists like Henri Matisse fades to drab beige. The research team found that the original chemical compound, cadmium sulphide, which is highly water-insoluble and bright yellow, is subject to a light-induced oxidation process that transforms it into a colorless, water-soluble cadmium sulphate. July 10, 2015. Crystal phase-transitions keep babies in third-world countries warm. To optimize the longevity of the release of heat, physicists Uma Ramabadran and Gillian Ryan at Kettering University are exploring - with X-ray diffraction - how it may be possible to slow down the liquid-to-solid phase transition. July 14, 2015. Scientists at the University of Tokyo announced that they had created a material that could store up heat and then release it on command, with just a little bit of pressure applied. The material is a ceramic called stripe-type-lambda-trititanium-pentoxide. This new ceramic can store heat over the course of a day, and then release it when needed. July 14, 2015. NASA's New Horizons probe flew by Pluto, capturing history's first up-close looks at the far-flung world. Closest approach came at 11:49 GMT, when the spacecraft whizzed within 12,500 km of Pluto's surface. To celebrate, NASA unveiled the latest photo of Pluto, showing a reddish world with a stunning heart-shaped feature on its face. July 16, 2015. A team of researchers based in Japan and the US is claiming to have fabricated the first vertical Schottky barrier diodes made from AlN. Their new approach is to deposit films using a faster deposition technique, HVPE. This is the approach taken by the Japan-US collaboration, which involves researchers from Tsukuba Research Laboratories, Fuji Electric Company, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, HexaTech and North Carolina State University. July 22, 2015. For the past 60 years, the best guide to the line between quantum and classical worlds has been a theorem called Bell's Inequality, but now a new paper shows that Bell's Inequality is not the guidepost it was believed to be, which means that as the world of quantum computing brings quantum strangeness closer to our daily lives, we understand the frontiers of that world less well than scientists have thought. July 24, 2015. Postdoctoral researcher Stephen Wu of the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory discovered that a magnetic material is not needed to create spin current from insulators. This is a finding that has important implications for the field of spintronics and the development of high-speed, low-power electronics that use electron spin rather than charge to carry information.

Recent Scientific Papers of Interest Papers for July 2015 Recent Scientific Papers of Interest is a monthly compilation of material analysis papers appearing in recently released journals and publications. See below

Handheld X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometers: Radiation Exposure Risks of Matrix-Specific Measurement Scenarios. Rouillon, Marek; Kristensen, Louise J.; Gore, Damian B. Applied Spectroscopy. Jul2015, Vol. 69 Issue 7, p815-822. 8p. DOI: 10.1366/14-07809.

Quantitative x-ray spectrometric analysis with peak to Compton ratios. Uzunoğlu, Zeynep; Yılmaz, Demet; Şahin, Yusuf. Radiation Physics & Chemistry. Jul2015, Vol. 112, p189-194. 6p. DOI: 10.1016/j.radphyschem.2015.03.039.

Influence of manufacturing parameters on the crackling process of ancient Chinese glazed ceramics. Lahlil, Sophia; Xu, Jiming; Li, Weidong. Journal of Cultural Heritage. Jul2015, Vol. 16 Issue 4, p401-412. 12p. DOI: 10.1016/j.culher.2014.10.003.

Preparation of Thin Films for Elemental Analysis of Nail Polish by Wavelength Dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy. McWilliams, Andrea C.; Martin, Al A.; Levine, Michael A.; Levine, Keith E.; Felder, Lauren; Young, Daniel J.; Harrington, James M. Analytical Letters. 2015, Vol. 48 Issue 13, p2122-2135. 14p. 4 Charts, 1 Graph. DOI: 10.1080/00032719.2015.1015072.

Preliminary experiment of X-ray diffraction imaging. Yamanashi, Masaki; Kometani, Noritsugu; Tsuji, Kouichi. Nuclear Instruments & Methods in Physics Research Section B. Jul2015, Vol. 355, p272-275. 4p. DOI: 10.1016/j.nimb.2015.02.049.

Quantitative X-ray Diffraction (QXRD) analysis for revealing thermal transformations of red mud. Liao, Chang-Zhong; Zeng, Lingmin; Shih, Kaimin. Chemosphere. Jul2015, Vol. 131, p171-177. 7p. DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2015.03.034.

In situ DRIFT, Raman, and XRF implementation in a multianalytical methodology to diagnose the impact suffered by built heritage in urban atmospheres. Gómez-Laserna, Olivia; Arrizabalaga, Iker; Prieto-Taboada, Nagore; Olazabal, María; Árana, Gorka; Madariaga, Juan. Analytical & Bioanalytical Chemistry. Jul2015, Vol. 407 Issue 19, p5635-5647. 13p. DOI: 10.1007/s00216-015-8738-7.

Direct investigations of deformation and yield induced structure transitions in polyamide 6 below glass transition temperature with WAXS and SAXS. Guo, Huilong; Wang, Jiayi; Zhou, Chengbo; Zhang, Wenyang; Wang, Zixuan; Xu, Bihui; Li, Jingqing; Shang, Yingrui; de Claville Christiansen, Jesper; Yu, Donghong; Wu, Zhonghua; Jiang, Shichun. Polymer. Jul2015, Vol. 70, p109-117. 9p. DOI: 10.1016/j.polymer.2015.06.013.

The history of Portuguese interior plaster coatings: a mineralogical survey using XRD. Freire, M. T.; Silva, A. Santos; Do Rosário Veiga, M.; De Brito, J. Archaeometry. 2015 Supplement, Vol. 57, p147-165. 19p. DOI: 10.1111/arcm.12130.

Identification of pyroxene minerals used as black pigments in painted human bones excavated in Northern Patagonia by Raman spectroscopy and XRD. Tomasini, Eugenia P.; Favier Dubois, Cristian M.; Little, Nicole C.; Centeno, Silvia A.; Maier, Marta S. Microchemical Journal. Jul2015, Vol. 121, p157-162. 6p. DOI: 10.1016/j.microc.2015.03.003.

Synthesis and small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) characterization of silica spheres covered with gel-like particles formed by means of solvent evaporation. Gutsche, Alexander; Guo, Xiaoai; Dingenouts, Nico; Nirschl, Hermann. Powder Technology. Jul2015, Vol. 278, p257-265. 9p. DOI: 10.1016/j.powtec.2015.03.037.

Magnetic, morphological and structural investigations of CoFe/Si interfacial structures. Kumar, Arvind; Srivastava, P.C. Journal of Experimental Nanoscience. Jul2015, Vol. 10 Issue 10, p803-818. 16p. DOI: 10.1080/17458080.2014.902543.

Construction of amorphous TiO₂/BiOBr heterojunctions via facets coupling for enhanced photocatalytic activity. Wang, Xiao-jing; Yang, Wen-yan; Li, Fa-tang; Zhao, Jun; Liu, Rui-hong; Liu, Shuang-jun; Li, Bo. Journal of Hazardous Materials. Jul2015, Vol. 292, p126-136. 11p. DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2015.03.030.

Microstructural development and helium bubble formation in Cu/W(Re) nanometer multilayer films irradiated by He⁺ ion. Chen, Shunli; Liu, Bo; Lin, Liwei; Jiao, Guohua. Nuclear Instruments & Methods in Physics Research Section B. Jul2015, Vol. 354, p244-248. 5p. DOI: 10.1016/j.nimb.2015.01.003.

Characterization of Ni-cermet degradation phenomena I. Long term resistivity monitoring, image processing and X-ray fluorescence analysis. Ananyev, M.V.; Bronin, D.I.; Osinkin, D.A.; Eremin, V.A.; Steinberger-Wilckens, R.; de Haart, L.G.J.; Mertens, J. Journal of Power Sources. Jul2015, Vol. 286, p414-426. 13p. DOI: 10.1016/j.jpowsour.2015.03.168.