To
return to the main XRD Lab page, click here.
A Resource Page for X-Ray Diffraction
This page is divided into five sections:
Some documents require the use of Adobe Acrobat Reader which may
be downloaded free from Adobe
Corporation.
Note: For ease in reading, navigating and printing pages linked here,
each of the links below will open in a new web browser window (or tab). To get back to
this links page when you are done, just close your browser window (or tab) and you will
find this one below it.
Local Resources for E&PS XRD Lab Users
- MDI Jade 6.5 Help (in Adobe
Acrobat Format)
- The Windows Help file information accessible from the operator's console
in Jade 6.5 converted into Acrobat PDF files with a Web-page index. Jade 6.5
is an incredibly powerful program, but a difficult one to learn about without
some significant "offline" study. This is provided for that purpose.
This is not openly accessible to users outside of
our department. To access this index and the files you must enter
your E&PS network account username and password when you click on the
link.
- XRD Laboratory
DataScan 4 "Cookbook"
- Adobe Acrobat PDF copy of the step-by-step "cookbook" for using
the Scintag PAD V system in our laboratory, revised April 2009 including updated information on printer connections, Jade and recent software changes.
- Using Yahoo Calendars to Schedule
Lab Time
- Adobe Acrobat PDF document that explains how to use Yahoo's online calendar
system to schedule the Scintag PAD V diffractometer for use. The
password for the account must be obtained personally (or via Email) from Jim
Connolly.
- Introduction to X-Ray Powder
Diffraction Course Information
- Every other "odd" year in the Spring we offer a 3 credit course
that is an introduction to XRD for students who plan to use the laboratory
or just want to learn how to do X-ray powder diffraction. This course page
may be used to link to course materials (primarily Acrobat PDF documents)
for lab users who want to improve their XRD skills.
- Using the BICO Jaw Crusher
- The BICO Jaw crusher is used to reduce rock specimens from fist-sized to
few-mm-sized granules. This Adobe Acrobat PDF document explains how to use
it.
- Using the SPEX Shatterbox
- The SPEX Shatterbox is used to reduce coarsely ground (few-mm-sized) granules
to a fine powder for chemical analysis or XRD. This Adobe Acrobat documents
explains its use in detail, and includes tables of maximum and minimum amounts
of material used in the different size and type of shatterbox containers.
This equipment is located in the Geochemistry lab (Rm 213) in Northrop Hall
and acces is controlled by Dr. Abdul Mehdi-Ali (mehdiali@unm.edu -- Phone
277-1637)
- Using the Retch-Brinkman
Micro-Rapid Mill
- The Micro-Rapid Mill is an automated agate mortar and pestle system that
can be used to reduce powders to under 10 microns by non-percussive grinding
under water, alcohol or acetone. While this Adobe Acrobat documents
explains its use in detail, to avoid damage to the equipment or your sample,
it should not be used without personal one-on-one training from the Lab manager.
Located in the XRD Lab (Room B-25 of Northrop Hall).
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X-Ray Diffraction and Crystallography Tutorials
- Matter Online
Tutorial on Diffraction
- Excellent interactive tutorial on all aspects of diffraction phenomena,
with a section on XRD. Produced by a non-profit consortium of Materials Science
departments in Universities in the UK. Highly recommended.
- Introductions to X-Ray
Diffraction
- A page of links to a large variety of online tutorials related to X-ray diffraction and crystallography from The University of Würtzberg in Germany, updated regularly.
- Scintag XRD Basics (Acrobat
PDF Document)
- An introductory tutorial from Scintag (the producers of our diffractometer)
is a good basic introduction to Bragg diffraction and powder diffractometry,
and some of the advanced capabilities of XRD as an analytical technique.
- Laboratory
Manual for X-Ray Powder Diffraction
- U. S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 01-041 is an introduction to X-ray
diffraction primarily concerned with the analysis of clay minerals. Contains
an intro to XRD and very extensive specimen preparation procedures for laboratory
analysis.
- Bragg's
Law and Diffraction
- This introduction to Braggs Law Diffraction features a Java applet which
simulates coherent and incoherent scattering. The user specifies the incident
wavelength (lamda), d-spacing (distance), and incident angle (theta) and the
simulator shows the coherence (or lack of coherence) of the diffracted beam
as a detector intensity.
- Crystal Symmetry Groups (Adobe
Acrobat PDF Document)
- A very good short introduction to crystal symmetry by Robert B. Von Dreele
of Los Alamos National Laboratory.
- IUCR
Teaching Pamphlets Home Page
- The International Union of Crystallographers has put together an excellent
set of online tutorials for Diffraction and Crystallography which run from
very basic to very advanced, all available online for free.
- X-ray
Radiology Tutorial
- This is comprehensive online tutorial about the field of X-ray radiology.
While it contains nothing about x-ray diffraction, it includes excellent sections
aboutthe generation of x-rays and their interaction with matter. The tutorial
makes extensive use of very nifty Java aplets (usually requiring the additon
of Sun Java 2 software to your system). Produced by the North Central Collaboration
for Education in Nondestructive Testing, a joint project of four midwest colleges
and Iowa State University.
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Radiation Safety Information and Tutorials
- Radiation Safety Tutorial
- This page is a subset of the X-ray Radiology Tutorial linked in the previous heading, and provides a very accessible and accurate discussion of just about all you need to know about radiation safety for X-ray users. The only thing to keep in mind is that it is generally slanted towards the higher energy X-rays used in radiology applications rather than the lower energy X-rays used in powder diffraction applications.
- Radiation Safety for X-Ray Diffraction
and Fluorescence Analysis Equipment
- NBS Handbook 111 is an old but still valid resource summarizing the principles
of radiation safety for X-ray diffraction and fluoresence laboratories.
- Radiation Safety Guide
for Users of Analytical X-Ray Systems
- Well written, concise guide to radiation safety for analytical X-ray systems
produced by the Indiana University radiation safety officer.
(Recommended for all lab users)
- Hazards in the Use of X-Ray Analytical
Instrumentation (Acrobat PDF Document)
- The classic 1973 paper by Jenkins and Haas is a must-read for anyone who
wants to understand the hazards associated with XRD and what to do to mitigate
them in the lab.
(Recommended for all lab users)
- Univ.
of Illinois Radiation Safety Office
- This site used to have a very nice online tutorial available to anyone, but it is now only available to faculty, staff and students of UIC. There are still quite a few other resources available for the interested outsider on this recently updated site.
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Crystallography and XRD Links
- Clay Minerals
Society Links Page
- A very extensive set of links which is slanted towards the analysis of clay minerals but also includes lots of more general crystallography, crystal chemistry, X-ray diffraction links and geological links. There are links to some great Earth Science sites here (and Dilbert too).
- Crystallography Journals
Online
- Online versions of all journals published by the International Union for
Crystallography. Journals of interest include Foundations of Crystallography, Structural Science, Crystal
Structure Communications, and Applied Crystallography. Selected articles
from current issues are available online for free, but most are available only by subscription or for individual purchase.
- International Union of Crystallographers (IUCr)
- Parts of this site are linked in other parts of this index page. This is the top level page with links to everything that is connected to IUCr. There are lots of links to rescources both within and external to the society.
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Links to Vendor Websites
- Bruker-AXS
- Siemens Analytical XRD division was acquired in the 1990s by Bruker, and
spun off as it's own division, Bruker-AXS. Web site does not contain a lot
of useful links unless you are shopping for a new system and are considering
what Bruker has to offer. It does include recent company news and contact
telephone numbers for sales and service.
- Compass
Engineering
- Anyone who has and has used a Scintag system will tell you how solid and
reliable they are and how difficult it is to get
them repaired on the rare occasions when they break. These guys are the Scintag
rescue crew. Compass Engineering was formed by the former head of Thermo's
service group in the U.S. and includes many engineers who worked for Scintag
before it was acquired (absorbed?, consumed?, etc.)
by Thermo. Karl Hoffmann and Don Watkins are two engineers who are very experienced
in Scintag systems. An invaluable very professional resource for folks who
like their Scintag systems and want to keep them functioning.
- Gem Dugout
- Owned and operated by the family of the late (and great) Deane Smith, Gem
Dugout is known primarily as the best source of custom-crafted zero background
quartz and silicon plates for use in diffractometers. The plates may be custom
sized for any diffractometer's specimen holder and can include optional machined
depressions on the surface for holding specimens. They are also one of the
few sources for the Silver Behenate, the much sought after extremely-low-angle
calibration standard material, and sodalite, a useful intermediate-angle calibration
standard.
- INEL
- INEL manufacturers unique very large aperture (90-120 degrees) curved position-sensitive
detectors and associated electronics enabling the creation of diffractometers
with extremely rapid data collection capabilities and virtually no moving
parts. They also make the Equinox line of diffractometer systems that incorporate
these innovative detectors, or can work with clients to adapt their detectors
to existing diffractometer systems.
- PANalytical
- PANalytical is the new incarnation of technology giant Philips' XRD division.
They still make some of the best X-ray tubes around and have been doing it
for a long time, and their systems are considered by most to be the most reliable
and well supported. This site has information about products, contacts, training
courses available, and company news releases. Free registration (in return
for allowing yourself to be pitched via Email) provides access to a large
library of papers and articles about different aspects of X-ray analysis.
.
- Rigaku
- Rigaku primarily makes XRF and XRD systems. They have a variety of systems
available for powder, thin film and single crystal XRD. Their inexpensive
Miniflex desktop-sized system is a fast and reliable machine for quickly analyizing
powders where very high-resolution data are not required, and their newest
systems feature the ability to deliver a tightly focussed beam or a standard-geomety
beam to a specimen with the flip of a lever. While most of the site is concerned
with product information and company contacts, the Rigaku
Journal (that unfortunately ceased publication in late 2006 but is still
available online) contains many useful technical articles about XRD and XRF
in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.
- McCrone
Micronizing Mill
- This device is considered by everyone who needs to have uniform powders
under 1 micron in size as the most important piece of sample prep equipment
that they own. There are other devices that will make fine powders, but this
one does it non-percussively and with minimal chance of operator error messing
up the sample. Unfortunatly we don't own one yet, but we want one and this
link is the equivalent of putting a picture of something you want on your
referigerator door. Any lab that wants to do routing quantitiative analyses
wants to spend the approximately $7K that it costs to own one of these. .
- Materials Data, Incorporated
- Materials Data (MDI) makes the software which we use for collecting and
analyzing our diffractometer data, including Datascan, Jade and Shadow 4.0.
The Datascan and Databox software can be used to directly operate many diffractometers,
which is particularly good for upgrades of older equipment which is not well
supported by the original vendor. In the world of very expensive software,
their costs are very reasonable (but not low by any means). The site contains
very limited information about their products and contact information.
- GBC Scientific
- GBC Scientific (of Australia) both automates older diffractometers and manufactures
economical compact desk-top new instruments. Old systems (including very old
Philips and Norelco systems) can be made to produce new data for a fraction
of the price of a new instrument. The software used with upgrades includes
"Visual XRD" system control, and "Traces" for analysis
of data. Both are 32-bit programs and access standard databases (including
the PDF-4). GBC, who also manufactures other types of analytical equipment,
acquired "Diffraction Technology" in 2001, and is continuing the
development and marketing of their products.
- International Center for
Diffraction Data
- ICDD is a non-profit corporation which produces the JCPDS Power Diffraction
File (PDF) which is the standard database for X-ray Powder Diffraction Data
for natural and synthetic materials. The PDF has recently been greatly expanded
and upgraded to a fully relational database format making it possible to include
a wealth of information not available in the older flat-file version of the
database. Their site contains product information, information about training
sessions, and links to information about the annual "Denver X-Ray Conference"
that the ICDD puts on every year in early August. The "Resources"
pages contain some very useful XRD-related links. Their vendor links page
(http://www.icdd.com/products/vendors.htm)
is a very comprehensive worldwide source list for X-ray Diffraction hardware,
software and accessories.
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Updated and links checked on February 2, 2009. Please send comment about (and suggested additions
to) this page to connolly@unm.edu.
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