Experimental station for multiscale surface structural analyses of soft-material films at SPring-8 via a GISWAX/GIXD/XR-integrated system

To gain a better understanding of the function of soft-material thin films, one should investigate the multiscale structural information from the surface roughness down to the atomically truncated structures at microarea. To achieve such an integrated investigation, a new experimental system has been launched by coupling with the measurement techniques, which include grazing incidence small/wide-angle X-ray scattering (GISWAXS) and grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXD), as well as X-ray reflectivity (XR), at the BL03XU beamline of SPring-8. The high brilliance and low divergence beam allows the surface and interface structure measurements from the angstrom to the micrometer scale using a soller-slit system for proper optimization of measurement precision. A typical structural analysis of the soft-material film was performed to evaluate the practical performance and specifications of the experimental system. Polymer Journal (2013) 45, 109-116; doi: 10.1038/pj.2012.194; published online 14 November 2012