Abstract
SASfit is one of the mature programs for small-angle scattering data analysis and has been available for many years. This article describes the basic data processing and analysis workflow along with recent developments in the SASfit program package (version 0.94.6). They include (i) advanced algorithms for reduction of oversampled data sets, (ii) improved confidence assessment in the optimized model parameters and (iii) a flexible plug-in system for custom user-provided models. A scattering function of a mass fractal model of branched polymers in solution is provided as an example for implementing a plug-in. The new SASfit release is available for major platforms such as Windows, Linux and MacOS. To facilitate usage, it includes comprehensive indexed documentation as well as a web-based wiki for peer collaboration and online videos demonstrating basic usage. The use of SASfit is illustrated by interpretation of the small-angle X-ray scattering curves of monomodal gold nanoparticles (NIST reference material 8011) and bimodal silica nanoparticles (EU reference material ERM-FD-102).
Highlights
With an increasing number of applications for small-angle scattering (SAS) experiments, for example in materials science, structural biology and analysis of soft matter, it is important to assist the user to extract structural information from measurements
There are a variety of approaches to obtain such structural parameters from the data, including model-free analysis, model fitting and inversion methods, several of which have been implemented in available software
More exotic applications include the study of relaxation mechanisms in magnetic colloids by stroboscopic spin-polarized smallangle neutron scattering (SANS) (Wiedenmann et al, 2011), simultaneous fitting of up to 70 measurements from contrast variation experiments (Kohlbrecher et al, 2006; Vavrin et al, 2009) and analysing the integral structural parameters of 400 scattering curves for creating local contrast in SANS by dynamic nuclear polarization
Summary
With an increasing number of applications for small-angle scattering (SAS) experiments, for example in materials science, structural biology and analysis of soft matter, it is important to assist the user to extract structural information from measurements. More exotic applications include the study of relaxation mechanisms in magnetic colloids by stroboscopic spin-polarized smallangle neutron scattering (SANS) (Wiedenmann et al, 2011), simultaneous fitting of up to 70 measurements from contrast variation experiments (Kohlbrecher et al, 2006; Vavrin et al, 2009) and analysing the (model-free) integral structural parameters of 400 scattering curves for creating local contrast in SANS by dynamic nuclear polarization (van den Brandt et al, 2007). This is the first paper describing SASfit. We present the program’s capability of incorporating user-defined model functions
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