A New Synchrotron-Based Diffraction Technique for Perturbation Crystallography

A new diffraction technique based on a wide-energy-bandpass X-ray beam in connection with lock-in detection for diffraction studies of crystals subjected to external perturbations has been developed. The broad-energy-bandpass beam is obtained by combining a wiggler or bending-magnet source with a curved Si monochromator in Laue geometry. This new technique has been applied in diffraction experiments on single crystals in external electric fields. Both the speed and accuracy of the measurements are increased by more than two orders of magnitude compared with conventional methods.