Volume 56, Issue 4 pp. 1051-1056
research papers

Exploring the impact of incoherent Compton scattering on X-ray pair distribution function analysis of disordered materials

Il-Kyoung Jeong

Corresponding Author

Il-Kyoung Jeong

Pusan National University,, Department of Physics Education, and Research Center for Dielectrics and Advanced Matter Physics, Busan, Republic of Korea

Il-Kyoung Jeong, e-mail: [email protected]Search for more papers by this author
First published: 16 June 2023

Abstract

X-ray atomic pair distribution function (XPDF) measurements using a two-dimensional area detector have been of great value in studying atomic structures of materials with varying degrees of disorder. However, an area detector does not have energy resolution. Thus, incoherent inelastic Compton scattering and fluorescence are not discriminated, contaminating coherent elastic scattering. This paper investigates the effects of random noise from incoherent scattering on XPDF analysis. To conduct the study, the elastic scattering, Compton scattering and fluorescence of In0.33Ga0.67As alloy were separately measured using an intrinsic Ge solid-state detector with energy resolution. It is found that the addition of Compton scattering with a noise-to-signal ratio of about 0.8% results in the smearing of diffuse scattering in the high-Q region. Moreover, adding extra noise from fluorescence increases the smearing, overwhelming the diffuse scattering. Additionally, simulated data of elastic and Compton scattering on ferroelectric Ba(Ti0.8Zr0.2)O3 were used to investigate the evolution of noise fluctuation and its effects on the XPDF as a function of total intensity.

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