An instrument for time-resolved and anomalous simultaneous small- and wide-angle X-ray scattering (SWAXS) at NSRRC

A SWAXS (small- and wide-angle X-ray scattering) instrument was recently installed at the wiggler beamline BL17B3 of the National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center (NSRRC), Taiwan. The instrument, which is designed for studies of static and dynamic nanostructures and correlations between the nano (or meso) structure (SAXS) and crystalline structure (WAXS), provides a flux of 10¹⁰-10¹¹ photon s^-1 at the sample at energies between 5 and 14 keV. With a SAXS area detector and a WAXS linear detector connected to two data acquisition systems operated in master-slave mode, the instrument allows one to perform time-resolved as well as anomalous scattering measurements. Data reduction algorithms have been developed for rapid processing of the large SWAXS data sets collected during time-resolved measurements. The performance of the instrument is illustrated by examples taken from different classes of ongoing projects: (i) time-resolved SAXS/WAXS/differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) with a time resolution of 10 s on a semicrystalline poly(hexamethylene terephthalate) sample, (ii) anomalous SAXS/WAXS measurements on a nanoparticulate PtRu catalyst, and (iii) grazing-incidence SAXS of a monolayer of oriented semiconductor quantum wires, and humidity-controlled ordering of Alamethicin peptides embedded in an oriented lipid membrane.