A novel approach to micro-sample X-ray powder diffraction using nylon loops

A novel method for sample mounting to obtain powder diffraction from very small amounts of samples ( ranging from micrograms down to a few nanograms), by using a combination of multiwire area detector, three- circle diffractometer, monochromatic Cu K alpha radiation and 10 mum nylon loops, has been developed. This method exploits customary single- crystal approaches to collect the powder diffraction pattern, which overcomes many of the limitations of conventional powder X- ray diffraction.