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You are here: Home » Testing & Characterization » Testing & Analysis Techniques » X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) » Grazing Incidence of Diffraction (GID)

Grazing Incidence of Diffraction (GID)

The Grazing Incidence of Diffraction (GID) method allows the phase composition of a fabricated material to be probed with depth from a surface of reference.

Irradiation of a sample, with an incident beam which is parallel and at a very low angle to the surface creates diffraction from the crystallites concentrated towards the surface.  The depth of x-ray penetration is correlated to the incident angle toward the surface; typical depth data can range from ~20 nanometres to approximately 10 microns.  In preparation, the surface of a material must be polished flat to ensure meaningful results.

Typical Applications

  • Changes in crystal forms deposited on top of a substrate, i.e. TiO2 forms (rutile or anatase) deposited on top of a substrate
  • Crystallite size of gold sputtered layers on a substrate
  • Oxidation layers at the surface of metallic materials, i.e. MoOx towards the surface of molybdenum metal
  • Crystalline oxidised phases towards the surface interface of metal substrates
  • Materials where it is suspected that there is a dichotomy between the bulk and the surface
  • Layers deposited on a substrate.

Typical Industries using XRD

  • Aerospace
  • Automotive
  • Materials
  • Glass, Ceramics and Refractories
  • Healthcare
  • Medical Devices
  • Semiconductors
  • Electronics.

XRD Application Note

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