X-ray powder diffractometer

摘要

An X-ray powder diffractometer and associated computing system is disclosed for diffraction analysis of samples by the generation of an intensity diagram. A detector having a position sensitive element is advanced along an arc over a desired angle by a step motor. A control circuit connected to the step motor produces impulses corresponding to advancement of the step motor. These impulses are continually summed as an indication of the current position of the detector along the arc. The position sensitive element in the detector produces position signals corresponding to the position at which the detected X-rays strike the element. These position signals are digitallized. The position address is added to the sum of the impulses from the step motor control means to produce a composite sum which is indicative of the precise angle at a given moment at which an X-ray photon is detected by the sensitive element in the detector. As the detector moves along the arc, the composite sum is continually updated. By these means all X-rays falling successively into a certain diffraction angle are accumulated in the same channel of a multichannel analyzer independent of the movement of the position sensitive detector along the arc.