The Debye–Scherrer camera at synchrotron sources: a revisit

In a powder diffraction pattern one measures the intensity of Miller-indexed Bragg peaks versus the wavevector transfer sinθ/λ. With increasing wavevector transfer the density of occurrence of Bragg peaks increases while their intensity decreases until they vanish into the background level. The lowest possible background level is that due to Compton scattering from the powder. A powder diffraction instrument has been designed and tested that yields this ideal low-background level, obtainable by having the space between sample and detector all in vacuum with the entrance window so far upstream that scattering from it is negligible. To minimize overlap of Bragg peaks the combination of fine collimation of synchrotron radiation, a thin cylindrical sample and a high-resolution imaging plate detector is taken advantage of.