Bruker High Temperature Chamber HTC-Reflectrometry VANTEC-1 X-Ray Detector for D8 Advance

The main features of the system are as follows:

The Vantec-1 is a sealed Xe-CO2 gas detector consisting of more than 1500 channels with a variable detection window ranging between 3-12°. A very important feature of the detector is its tunable energy resolution for background reduction, particularly critical in the case of steel samples measured with copper radiation since monochromators cannot be used with PSD. Furthermore, the Vantec-1 has the capability to be operated in scanning mode (the same way as a scintillation counter) or in fixed mode (also called snapshot mode) similar to a wire detector. The fixed mode allows several diffraction patterns to be recorded every second over the whole window range of the detector. These features make it the perfect detector for our multipurpose powder D8 Advance diffractometer, whereby its full potential can be exploited with in-situ diffraction studies when combined with a high temperature heating stage. Most relevant for the saturation problems faced in the Lab, the detector work much faster than a scintillation counter (single channel detector); the data acquisition time is therefore reduced by at least two orders of magnitude. The High Temperature Reflectrometry Stage characterizes thin films (e.g. film thickness, stoichiometric composition, phase content, etc) for any temperature between room temperature and temperatures up to 800°C. In addition, by removing the knife edge collimator from thee heating stage, the latter can also be used as a conventional heating stage: within the imparted temperature range, the study and characterization of phase formation at the surface of materials and the occurrence of metastable states that would not occur at room temperature can also be studied.