SUNBIM: a package for X-ray imaging of nano- and biomaterials using SAXS, WAXS, GISAXS and GIWAXS techniques

Abstract

SUNBIM(supramolecular and submolecular nano- and biomaterials X-ray imaging) is a suite of integrated programs which, through a user-friendly graphical user interface, are optimized to perform the following: (i)q-scale calibration and two-dimensional → one-dimensional folding on small- and wide-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS/WAXS) and grazing-incidence SAXS/WAXS (GISAXS/GIWAXS) data, also including possible eccentricity corrections for WAXS/GIWAXS data; (ii) background evaluation and subtraction, denoising, and deconvolution of the primary beam angular divergence on SAXS/GISAXS profiles; (iii) indexing of two-dimensional GISAXS frames and extraction of one-dimensional GISAXS profiles along specific cuts; (iv) scanning microscopy in absorption and SAXS contrast. The latter includes collection of transmission and SAXS data, respectively, in a mesh across a mm2area, organization of the as-collected data into a single composite image of transmission values or two-dimensional SAXS frames, analysis of the composed data to derive the absorption map and/or the spatial distribution, and orientation of nanoscale structures over the scanned area.