DURIP: Acquisition of High Throughput X-ray Optics

Equipment is purchased for an advanced optics and detector package to complement an existing 4-circle x-ray diffractometer being used for an ONR MURI titled ~The Science of Entropy Stabilized Ultra-High Temperature Materials.~ PI Maria requests ONR support for an advanced optics and detector package to complement an existing 4-circle x-ray diffractometer that is presently in use. The advance package will offer the following new capabilities that are suited ideally to expedite a broad set of existing ONR, DoD, and NSF research programs: 1) Two-dimensional area detection capabilities that enable accelerated data collection, confident data refinements to solve structures, the ability to resolve extremely fine or low volume fraction crystalline phases, and better collection geometries for thin layers; 2) High definition incident beam optics that dramatically reduce background signals, effectively enhancing peak resolution while preserving exceptional beam brightness; 3) Microdiffraction capabilities that enable local crystallographic or strain analysis, and phase mapping along lateral dimensions on the scale of 100 microns; 4) The combination of all above aspects with high dynamic range area detection thereby enabling high throughput characterization. The instrumentation will enable rapid characterization of a wide variety of ceramic, semiconducting, and metallic bulk polycrystals, thin layers, coatings, and single crystals that are central to numerous DoD programs. While the possible uses are diverse, the central motivation, research priority, and scientific intent for this instrumentation arise from our newly-funded ONR Multidisciplinary Universtiy Research Initiative (MURI): The Science of Entropy Stabilized Ultra-High Temperature Materials. The PIXel detector and supporting optics that we propose represents a dramatic advance over the existing equipment. In most general terms, this upgrade will allow our team to identify phases and volume fractions of crystalline material that were previously invisible, to eliminate background signals and fluorescence that obscure quantitative structure measurements, to increase our data collection rate by 1000X, and to conduct local measurements of phase, structure, and residual stress. The wide field of view and extremely rapid data acquisition speed with new modes of structural analysis, particularly considering rapid scans at elevated temperatures. This detector will be compatible with future microstages that will be constructed in the MURI to access extreme high temperatures in very small and confined volumes for structure, oxidation, and melting point analysis.