About the facility
Our SAXS@Bragg Facility hosts two small- and wide-angle Xray scattering (SAXS/WAXS) instruments used to characterise powders, gels, pastes and liquids. SAXS/WAXS analysis can determine the chemical phases present within a material and reveal details of their nanostructure, such as size, shape and orientation. The facility is ideally suited for characterising materials such as polymers, suspensions, proteins in solution, liquid crystals, elastomers, multilayer thin film electronic devices, biofilms and nanomaterials on surfaces.
Our Anton-Paar SAXSPoint 5.0 offers four additional setups that allow us to explore different material properties. Our in-situ rheometer can apply shear stress to a sample to simulate real-world applications while characterising its structure and rheology, which is ideal for testing consumer product formulations. Our temperature-controlled stages can be used to observe chemical and structural changes in a sample during temperature-induced transitions, with a range of -40°C to 300°C. Our tensile testing stage allows us to study the structural variation of materials when they are stretched. Finally, a grazing incidence (GI-SAXS) stage enables us to analyse thin films and nanostructured surfaces.
If you’re a business, learn about accessing our facilities.
Available equipment
- Anton Paar SAXSPoint 5.0, equipped with a point focus, CuKα source and a 2D Eiger 2R 1M-detector (Dectris), with Q range of 0.01 to 49.3 nm-1 to enable characterisation of structures from ~0.06 to 600nm in size.
- Anton Paar SAXSpace, equipped with a line-focus (high flux) CuKα source with a 1D Mythen detector (Dectris), with a Q range of 0.01 to 18nm-1 to enable characterisation of structures from ~3.2 to 200nm in size.
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