Simultaneous Position-Resolved Determination of Phase and Stress Distributions by means of an X-ray Diffractometer with a Two-Dimensional Position-Sensitive Detector

With an X-ray area detector and a suitable Soller-plate collimator in the scattered radiation field, it is possible to realize a versatile X-ray diffractometer. The local diffraction information of a sample can be registered simultaneously and visualized with a spatial resolution better than 0.5 mm, maintaining reasonable measuring times of a few minutes. Results of measurements applied to local phase analysis (distribution of retained austenite and carbon on a cross section of case-hardened steel), to the determination of lateral stress distributions (laser-hardened track on C45 steel) and to the analysis of crystallite orientation (coarse-grained YBa₂Cu₃O_δ) are presented.