Structural Characterization of Silk Fibers by Small-Angle X-Ray Scattering.

Nature is rich in all kinds of unbelievably designed microstructures, which endows the natural materials with various fantastic performances. Unveiling the mystery of the sophisticated configurations and the relationship between those microstructures and the corresponding functions is helpful for the manufacture of artificial functional materials. Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) is an advanced tool to gain the microstructural features of materials within a spatial scale much larger than the atomic scale (1000 nm), which can be carried out along with WAXS to conduct more systematic investigation over different kinds of materials. With the help of SAXS/WAXS, one may generate an insightful understanding of the mechanisms of structure-property evolution (which is efficient guidance for the artificial material designs). This chapter will introduce the mathematics and the methodologies used by SAXS when investigating the microstructure of natural materials.