Focused beam powder diffraction with polycapillary and curved crystal optics

Focusing x-ray optics can be used to increase the intensity onto small samples, greatly reducing the data collection time for powder diffraction. Typically, the beam convergence is restricted to avoid loss of resolution since the focused beams broaden the resulting powder diffraction rings. However, the resolution, as defined by the uncertainty in peak location, can be much less than the peak width. Two types of x-ray optics, polycapillary and doubly curved crystals, were used to focus x rays onto standard inorganic powder diffraction samples. Comparisons were made of system resolution and diffracted beam intensity using low power microfocus sources.