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laboratory notes
The conventional zero-background holder technique has been adapted for handling small bulk samples by adding one-axis mobility to a single-crystal wafer using a Newport optical stage. Experiments showed that an a-plane sapphire crystal with a surface-to-crystal-plane angle of ∼3° can be used as a zero-background holder. Such a crystal is a viable alternative to the commercial Rigaku product and shows better performance in the intermediate angle range (2θ = 60–110° for Cu Kα radiation). It has also been demonstrated that the proposed scheme of hardware stacking is operational.