Ultra Small-Angle X-ray Diffractometer

小角X射线散射一直是软物质、生物物质和材料科学等领域研究纳米尺度体系结构的重要手段。在过去十年中，强X射线源和高动态探测器系统领域的技术进步开辟了新的科学应用领域，而这些领域以前只能使用大型研究设施（同步加速器源）来解决。在这种情况下，应用程序是一个超小角度X射线衍射仪，这将主要用于五个研究小组从物理化学和有机化学研究所在斯图加特大学的工作，对当前和未来的研究项目。这些包括新的，分层结构的甲壳素材料（ChitinFluid项目）的研究，分子多相催化功能化介孔载体材料的表征（SFB 1333），但也研究了新的复杂流体，如离子液晶，溶致液晶凝胶，微乳液和乳液。这种各向同性和各向异性纳米尺度系统的宽光谱不仅需要分别在宽范围的散射矢量（从0.01 nm^（-1）到40 nm^（-1））和长度尺度（从几百nm到0.1 nm）上进行二维测量，而且还需要不同的测量几何形状和样品环境。就其测量范围以及强度、亮度和结构（气隙、用户特定的样品环境）而言，拟议的仪器将为计划中的研究项目（ChitinFluid，SFB 1333）提供不可或缺的可能性。

Small-angle X-ray scattering has always been a key method for elucidating the structure of nanoscale systems in the fields of soft and biological matter or materials science. Technological progress in the field of intense X-ray sources and highly dynamic detector systems has opened up new scientific application areas in the last decade, which could previously only be addressed using large-scale research facilities (synchrotron sources). In this context, an application is made for an ultra-small-angle X-ray diffractometer, which will be used primarily by five research groups from the Institutes of Physical Chemistry and Organic Chemistry at the University of Stuttgart to work on current and future research projects. These include the investigation of new, hierarchically structured chitin materials (ChitinFluid project), the characterization of functionalized mesoporous support materials for molecular heterogeneous catalysis (SFB 1333) but also the investigation of novel complex fluids such as ionic liquid crystals, lyotropic liquid crystalline gels, microemulsions and emulsions. This broad spectrum of both isotropic and anisotropic nanoscale systems requires not only two-dimensional measurements over a wide range of scattering vectors (from 0.01 nm^(-1) to 40 nm^(-1)) and length scales (from several 100 nm to 0.1 nm), respectively, but also different measurement geometries and sample environments. With regard to its measurement range as well as its intensity, brilliance and construction (air gap, user-specific sample environments), the proposed instrument will open up those possibilities which are indispensable for the planned research projects (ChitinFluid, SFB 1333).