Visualizing the mixed bonding properties of liquid boron with high-resolution x-ray Compton scattering.

Bonding characteristics of liquid boron at 2500 K are studied by using high-resolution Compton scattering. An excellent agreement is found between the measurements and the corresponding Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics simulations. Covalent bond pairs are clearly shown to dominate in liquid boron along with the coexistence of diffuse pairs.

Persistence of covalent bonding in liquid silicon probed by inelastic x-ray scattering.

Metallic liquid silicon at 1787 K is investigated using x-ray Compton scattering. An excellent agreement is found between the measurements and the corresponding Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics simulations. Our results show persistence of covalent bonding in liquid silicon and provide support for the occurrence of theoretically predicted liquid-liquid phase transition in supercooled liquid states.

Compact electrostatic levitator for diffraction measurements with a two axis diffractometer and a laboratory x-ray source.

A compact electrostatic levitator was developed for the structural analysis of high-temperature liquids by x-ray diffraction methods. The size of the levitator was 200 mm in diameter and 200 mm in height and can be set up on a two axis diffractometer with a laboratory x-ray source, which is very convenient in performing structural measurements of high-temperature liquids. In particular, since the laboratory x-ray source allows a great amount of user time, preliminary or challenging experiments can be performed with trial and error, which prepares and complements synchrotron x-ray experiments.

Magnetic circular dichroism of 3d5/2 --> 2p3/2 resonant inelastic X-ray scattering at the Ho L(III)-edge in Ho3Fe5O12.

Magnetic Circular Dichroism (MCD) of Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering (RIXS) of 3d(5/2) --> 2p(3/2) decay (Ho Lalpha1) was measured at the Ho L(III)-edge in Ho3Fe5O12. The MCD-RIXS, in which the intermediate state has the 2p4f(n+1) configuration due to the quadrupolar transition of 2p --> 4f, was also observed at the pre-edge region of the Ho L(III)-edge. The obvious superposition of two peaks, which comes from the high-energy off-resonant Raman scattering and the fluorescence, could be found in both the RIXS and the MCD-RIXS when the energy of the incoming X-ray was 7eV higher than the white line.