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U.S. Department of Energy
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Time resolved techniques: An overview

Conference ·
OSTI ID:6873948

Synchrotron sources provide exceptional opportunities for carrying out time-resolved x-ray diffraction investigations. The high intensity, high angular resolution, and continuously tunable energy spectrum of synchrotron x-ray beams lend themselves directly to carrying out sophisticated time-resolved x-ray scattering measurements on a wide range of materials and phenomena. When these attributes are coupled with the pulsed time-structure of synchrotron sources, entirely new time-resolved scattering possibilities are opened. Synchrotron beams typically consist of sub-nanosecond pulses of x-rays separated in time by a few tens of nanoseconds to a few hundred nanoseconds so that these beams appear as continuous x-ray sources for investigations of phenomena on time scales ranging from hours down to microseconds. Studies requiring time-resolution ranging from microseconds to fractions of a nanosecond can be carried out in a triggering mode by stimulating the phenomena under investigation in coincidence with the x-ray pulses. Time resolution on the picosecond scale can, in principle, be achieved through the use of streak camera techniques in which the time structure of the individual x-ray pulses are viewed as quasi-continuous sources with {approximately}100--200 picoseconds duration. Techniques for carrying out time-resolved scattering measurements on time scales varying from picoseconds to kiloseconds at present and proposed synchrotron sources are discussed and examples of time-resolved studies are cited. 17 refs., 8 figs.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (USA)
Sponsoring Organization:
DOE/ER
DOE Contract Number:
AC05-84OR21400
OSTI ID:
6873948
Report Number(s):
CONF-900756-7; ON: DE90012733
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English