XRD-2: Pilatus3 x2M detector stage for single crystal X-ray diffraction (SCXRD) and in-situ / in-operando PXRD measurements

XRD-2 is optimized for single crystal diffraction and in situ powder diffraction measurements. The station consists of a heavy Pilatus3 X 2M detector placed in a sturdy support frame which is mounted together with the sample goniometer on a common granite table. The detector has a sensitive area of 253.7 x 288.8 mm2 (width x height) and a pixel size of 172 x 172 µm2 and is mounted in a support frame, which allows lateral and vertical movements as well as rotation. 

The sample-detector distances can be varied between 140 and 600 mm. Three goniometers are available to mount samples: a Huber uniaxial goniometer 410, a Huber Kappa goniometer 512.410, and an Arinax Kappa goniometer MK3. Diffraction measurements can be combined with XANES and XRF spectroscopy using a single-element Vortex X90 CUBE Si drift detector with a FalconX1 processor.

A beam conditioning unit in front of the goniometer comprises an entrance slit, a small ionization chamber to monitor the incoming beam intensity, and a collimation unit to suppress parasitic scattering from the slit blades. For optical sample alignment, a long-distance microscope K2 (Infinity Photo-Optical GmbH) is placed at a distance of 180 mm from the sample position. A macro camera is used to align supporting devices like a heat chamber HTK1200 (Anton Paar, up to 1200 °C). The setup also includes a cryo cooler 800 series (Oxford Cryosystems Ltd.) which controls a temperature range of 80-400 K. The diffractometer is operated with the GUI-based software Pylatus (Dyadkin, 2016).