Structure factor

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The structure factor is a measure of the scattering power of a crystal base . He gives the relative intensity of by the Laue indices , , specific diffraction reflex on. The structure factor depends on the structure of the base, the scattering power of the base atoms and their thermal motion . The direction in which the diffraction reflexes can be observed is given by the Bragg or, equivalently, the Laue condition , which is based on the pure crystal lattice (a point-like scattering center at the lattice point).

description

Principle of the Laue condition: the two beams
only
interfere constructively with certain ratios of and k '

One chooses a reference point within the unit cell as the origin. Two infinitesimal volume elements are considered as scattering centers, one at the reference point , one at . Let the wave vector of the incident radiation be that of the scattered one . This results in the following path difference (path difference):

The phase difference is (the scattering is elastic, so ):

After the Laue condition diffraction reflections can be observed only when the change of the wave vector in the scattering process a reciprocal lattice vector corresponds to: . This results in inserted:

Now you integrate over the volume of a unit cell and weight the phase differences with the scattering power of each volume element . The scattering power is, depending on the diffraction experiment (see above), the electron density , the charge density or the nuclear density.

The wave diffracted at the crystal has an amplitude that is proportional to the size just calculated.

is called a structure factor . This is from the Laue indices , , dependent since the reciprocal lattice vector equal is. The structure factor is thus the Fourier transform of the scattering power (e.g. the electron density) .

The vector can be a linear combination of primitive lattice vectors write: . The scalar product in the exponent can be evaluated with the relation ( corresponds to ):

The structure factor is a complex quantity . As a result of a diffraction experiment, one observes the intensity of the diffracted wave, which is proportional to the square of the magnitude of the structure factor :

Thus all phase information is lost. If the result of a measurement were to be available, the required quantity could be found using Fourier transformation :

Since, however, only known approximation methods such as the Patterson method must be used to solve the phase problem.

Atomic scattering factor

The position vector is now broken down into a part that points from the reference point to the nucleus of the -th atom, and a vector that points from the nucleus of the -th atom to the volume element under consideration.

In the equation for the structure factor, the integral over the whole unit cell is split up into a sum over smaller integration areas, namely the volumes of the individual atoms . Here is the scattering power (e.g. electron density) of the -th atom. The sum runs over all atoms of the unit cell:

The integral is called the atomic scattering factor (or atomic form factor ) of the -th atom:

The structure factor is thus written as follows:

With the component notation introduced above:

If one also considers the thermal movement of the atoms, it is time-dependent. Now one breaks down into a mean location (equilibrium position, resting) and the deflection (time-dependent). The latter leads to the Debye-Waller factor .

example

As an example, the structure factor for a cesium chloride structure is calculated. The grid is a cubic primitive are 2-atomiger base, the primitive lattice vectors , , . One base atom is attached to the other .

If the sum of the Laue indices is even, the diffracted X-ray beam has a high intensity; if the sum is odd, the intensity is minimal. If both base atoms have the same atomic scattering factor , the intensity is zero if the sum is odd; one speaks of complete extinction . This applies to the body-centered cubic lattice (bcc lattice) if it is described in the system of the primitive cubic lattice with two identical basic atoms:

literature

  • Borchardt-Ott, Walter: Crystallography: an introduction for natural scientists . Springer publishing house.
  • Massa, Werner: Crystal structure determination . Teubner Verlag.