Anomalous small-angle X-ray scattering for materials chemistry

Over the past decade, the development of in situ characterization techniques has become necessary to understand the structure-property relationships of functional materials. In situ small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) represents one of the techniques for studying the evolution kinetics of materials structures, but the SAXS signals lack chemical information on the materials. Anomalous SAXS (ASAXS) measured at different energies near the X-ray absorption edge of an interesting element allows the deconvolution of element-specific SAXS profiles, enabling the promise of simultaneously revealing the evolution kinetics of both the structures and the chemistry of composite materials under operando conditions. Typical composite materials studied by ASAXS are overviewed to shed light on the potential of in situ ASAXS in materials chemistry research.