Media Release

Mangaluru, Dec 30: Advanced X-Ray diffraction facility is set up in the department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at National Institute of Technology Karnataka (NITK), Surathkal, here which was inaugurated by the director of NITK, Prof Umamaheshwar Rao on December 23.

The equipment is Empyrean III, from Malvern Panalytical Netherlands.

The Empyrean III instrument has a basic platform for characterization of materials, such as metals and alloys, clay minerals, geological rock samples, powders, thin films, nano-materials and nanoparticles dispersed in liquid media for different applications, such as scientific, industrial, academic and research field.

The facility includes different types of sample holders, like zero background holder (for small quantity sample), rectangular sample holder, spinning sample holder, capillary liquid holder and High-temperature sample holder. For analysis of diffraction data Xpert Highscore plus software with ICDD PDF-2 2020 database with features 311,500+ entries for rapid and accurate phase identification is also available.

The diffraction measurements include Crystal structure determination, Phase identification, Quantification, Contaminant detection, Grazing incidence X-ray (GIXD), Small and Wide-Angle X-Ray Scattering (SAX and WAXS), Micro-X-ray diffraction, High-Temperature X-ray Diffraction, up 1400 °C.

The facility is available for public use.