TY - JOUR A1 - Kowarik, Stefan A1 - Bogula, A1 - Boitano, A1 - Carla, A1 - Pithan, A1 - Schafer, A1 - Wilming, A1 - Zykov, A1 - Pithan, T1 - A novel 3D printed radial collimator for x-ray diffraction N2 - We demonstrate the use of a 3D printed radial collimator in X-ray powder diffraction and surface sensitive grazing incidence X-ray diffraction. We find a significant improvement in the overall Signal to background ratio of up to 100 and a suppression of more than a factor 3⋅10⁵ for undesirable Bragg reflections generated by the X-ray “transparent” windows of the sample environment. The background reduction and the removal of the high intensity signals from the windows, which limit the detector’s dynamic range, enable significantly higher sensitivity in experiments within sample environments such as vacuum chambers and gas- or liquid-cells. Details of the additively manufactured steel collimator geometry, alignment strategies using X-ray fluorescence, and data analysis are also briefly discussed. The flexibility and affordability of 3D prints enable designs optimized for specific detectors and sample environments, without compromising the degrees of freedom of the diffractometer. KW - 3D printing PY - 2019 DO - https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5063520 SN - 0034-6748 VL - 90 IS - 3 SP - 035102, 1 EP - 8 PB - AIP AN - OPUS4-48171 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kowarik, Stefan A1 - Weber, C. A1 - Pithan, L. A1 - Zykov, A. A1 - Bommel, S. A1 - Carla, F. A1 - Felici, R. A1 - Knie, C. A1 - Bléger, D. T1 - Multiple timescales in the photoswitching kinetics of crystalline thin films of azobenzene-trimers N2 - Functional materials that exhibit photoinduced structural phase transitions are highly interesting for applications in optomechanics and mechanochemistry. It is, however, still not fully understood how photochemical reactions, which are often accompanied by molecular motion, proceed in confined and crystalline environments. Here we show that thin films of azobenzene trimers exhibit high structural order and determine the crystallographic unit cell. We demonstrate that thin film can be switched partially reversibly between a crystalline and an amorphous phase. The time constant of the photoinduced amorphisation as measured with real-time x-ray diffraction ($\approx $ 220 s) lies between the two time constants (120 s and 2870 s) of the ensemble photoisomerisation processes that are measured via optical spectroscopy. Our observation of a photoinduced shrinking of the crystalline domains indicates a cascading process, in which photoisomerisation starts at the surface of the thin film and propagates deeper into the crystalline layer by introducing disorder and generating free volume. This finding is important for the rapidly evolving research field of photoresponsive thin films and smart crystalline materials in general. KW - Azobenzene PY - 2017 DO - https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-648X/aa8654 SN - 0953-8984 SN - 1361-648X VL - 29 IS - 43 SP - Article 434001, 1 EP - 8 AN - OPUS4-42501 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -