X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques for materials characterization

Abstract Since the discovery of X-rays at the end of the 19th century and the first works on diffraction of X-rays by crystals, huge developments were achieved in the application of these methods for material characterization. In particular, in the field of materials science and engineering, several applications were developed to become state of the art techniques. This chapter first presents a condensed overview of the production of X-rays as well as of the theory of diffraction of X-rays by crystals. A short survey of the hardware for X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements is given. The methods of phase analysis, residual stress measurements, and texture investigations of polycrystalline materials are then described with examples, and finally, special methods and future trends are presented.