Hardware and Software Improvements in the Hotbird

The Hotbird is a state of the art X-ray laboratory for advanced materials characterisation, installed at ITN since 1999. Several major improvements in its capabilities have been implemented. On the one hand, new hardware developments have extended the applications that can be studied and on the other hand, new software has enabled both enhanced automated control of the system, and improved data analysis that leads to extraction of further precise information from the data. One improvement was the implementation of the x-ray reflectometry (XRR) technique, which is a major expansion of the Hotbird capabilities. XRR is well-suited to characterise film thickness and roughness with high resolution. Furthermore, several optics improvements, such as a Göbel mirror and monochromators were introduced. The combination of this optics allows one to use either a higher intensity beam (orders of magnitude better) or a higher resolution beam configuration. A new high-temperature chamber was developed, which allows one to perform in-situ experiments with excellent temperature control up to 800 ºC, in all possible configurations. Data simulation/fitting analysis software for XRR was developed. Also, to control the diffractometer and perform experiments, a new user-friendly software package was developed. In order to illustrate the Hotbird capabilities improvements, several experimental examples will be described.