Open Air X-ray Diffractometer for Crystallography, Compression, Contraction, and Structural Phase Transitions with Variable Temperature Capabilities

It is a fact that materials contract or expand by changing their temperature. On the atomic scale, in some materials, the distance between atoms increases or decreases linearly whereas other materials show non-linear contractions or expansions as function of temperature. X-ray diffraction (XRD) is one of the popular techniques used for understanding the crystal structure of these materials. However, mostly XRD is carried in open air at room temperature or require very expensive high vacuum set-ups and expensive temperature controllers for low temperature studies. Here we propose a design of a variable temperature X-ray diffractometer that can operate in dual modes: heating and cooling in open air. The proposed diffractometer has been used for studying structural phase transition in chromium nitride thin films. The results demonstrated not only the effectiveness of our proposed setup but also its applicability in advancing our understanding of complex material behaviors.• A new design of a variable temperature X-ray diffractometer has been introduced in this paper, which can be used for acquiring XRD data while heating or cooling samples in open air.• As a proof of concept, the newly designed variable temperature X-ray diffractometer is used for studying structural phase transition in CrN thin films.