Synchrotron Radiation and the Determination of Atomic Arrangements in Amorphous Materials

Synchrotron radiation (SR) makes feasible a number of new techniques for the determination of atomic arrangements in amorphous materials using x-ray absorption and scattering. It also provides marked improvements in established techniques. These result from the extremely high x-ray intensities as well as the continuous spectrum, which allows measurements to be taken at photon wavelengths determined by the nature of the experiment rather than by the availability of an appropriate x-ray tube anode material. In this paper, we review these improvements and new capabilities, with an emphasis on the types of information which can be obtained. The techniques discussed are radial distribution functions (RDF’s), EXAFS, anomalous x-ray scattering for the determination of the coordinations of specific atomic species in polyatomic amorphous materials and grazing incidence scattering (GIS) for the determination of atomic arrangements in thin amorphous films on substrates.