Abstract
An image scanner (IS), which is less expensive and more handy than a microphotometer, was successfully used to read Debye-Scherrer (DS) powder diffraction photographs. The data obtained by the IS were comparable to those by a photometer.
The intensities are read in 256 levels with the 600 DPI interval along the 2θ The peak positions and intensities are determined by a personal computer on the CRT with a mouse. Alternatively, the data can be directly processed by softwares such as smoothing, background subtraction, Kα2 elimination, peak search and peak separation. Being put in the same format as that of the automated counter diffractometer equipped with the aforementioned softwares, the storage retrieval and comparison of the DS data are greatly facilitated.
Although the counter diffractometer method is faster, more accurate and more sensitive, the DS method has several advantages over it; the amount of specimen can be very small, and air-sensitive materials can be easily handled with a glass capillary. Furthermore, halos and diffuse scatterings, which might evade the counter method, can be identified by the DS, or film methods in general.
Application of this method to two dimensional photographs can partly substitute for the costly imaging plate system.
