Nano-imaging of functional materials by spatio-temporally resolved X-ray diffraction

With the start of the 1^st hard X-ray 4^th generation synchrotron source at the European Synchrotron flux and brilliance hungry methods typically exploiting nanobeams and coherence are gaining momentum in the community of nanomaterials. Spatially resolving X-ray diffraction based tools are of relevance for the characterization of most emerging nanomaterials. While typical samples for these techniques traditionally were microelectronic structures, the resolving power has proven to reach down to length scales relevant for catalysis and basic solid state chemistry. While developments over the recent years were mainly affected by the rather slow evolution of basic X-ray equipment like optics and detectors, their level of maturity now leads to a limit set by the X-ray source itself. With worldwide efforts in the upgrading or new conception of synchrotron sources, improvements of several orders of magnitude in the throughput of these methods are now at reach. Beamline ID01 at The European Synchrotron is specialized on the imaging of strain and structure under Bragg diffraction conditions exploiting coherent nanobeams or full field diffraction in dark field mode. Our first results show the relevance of such new tools in complex experimental environments. High resolution in reciprocal and real space is now obtained on time scales allowing to follow operando processes in real time conditions as encountered in nanotechnology and chemistry.