An Automatic X-Ray Diffraction Apparatus

Abstract

It is the purpose of this paper to describe a relatively simple x-ray diffraction apparatus which automatically records, in the form of an inked graph on a moving strip of coordinate paper, diffraction patterns made by substantially pure Mo K-alpha x-rays. A Mo-target x-ray tube is operated in the usual way on a half-wave rectified 60-cycle 42-kvmax circuit. Balanced filters of Zr and Sr are automatically inserted in the path of the incident beam during alternate ``useful'' half-cycles of the power circuit. The intensities of the two sets of diffracted beams are measured by a Geiger-Mueller quantum counter, one set of data is electrically subtracted from the other, and the difference (representing the pattern which would have been obtained from a pure Mo K-alpha beam), is automatically recorded in the form of an intensity vs. angle graph.