Photon-In/Photon-Out Spectroscopic Techniques for Materials Analysis: Some Recent Developments

Third-generation synchrotron light source technology has greatly improved the capabilities for materials analysis using tunable X-rays. Two such capabilities developed recently are reported herein - inverse partial fluorescence yield (IPFY) XANES (X-ray absorption near edge structure) and 2D XANES - XEOL (X-ray excited optical luminescence) in both the energy and time domain. These techniques take advantage of recent advances in soft X-ray solid state detector, optical spectrometer with a CCD detector and optical streak camera on a soft X-ray beamline as well as new data acquisition schemes. The studies of LiFePO4 materials for Li ion battery and solid solutions of GaN-ZnO nanostructures for water splitting are used to illustrate these capabilities. The prospects of these and related synchrotron photon-in photon-out techniques are also noted.