Angular X-ray Cross-Correlation Analysis Applied to the Scattering Data in 3D Reciprocal Space from a Single Crystal

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel application of Angular X-ray Cross-Correlation Analysis (AXCCA) to 3D reciprocal space data from a single crystal, enabling structural insights without averaging over multiple samples.

Contribution

The paper presents a new method to apply AXCCA directly to single-crystal 3D scattering data, unlike traditional approaches requiring multiple samples.

Findings

Successfully demonstrated on simulated data.

Validated with experimental measurements.

Provides qualitative structural information from single crystals.

Abstract

We propose an application of the Angular X-ray Cross-Correlation Analysis (AXCCA) to the scattered intensity distribution measured in three-dimensional (3D) reciprocal space from a single crystalline sample. Contrary to the conventional application of AXCCA, when averaging over many two-dimensional (2D) diffraction patterns collected from different randomly oriented samples is required, the proposed approach gives an insight into the structure of a single specimen. This is particularly useful in studies of defect-reach samples that are unlikely to have the same structure. Here, we demonstrate an example of a qualitative structure determination of a colloidal crystal on the simulated as well as experimentally measured 3D scattered intensity distributions.