Depth Profiling of Ceramic Specimens using Multi-Wavelength X-Ray Bragg-Brentano Diffraction Data with Particular Reference to Zirconia-Aluminas

Abstract

AbstractDepth profile analysis of phase composition, residual strain and crystallite size in ceramic specimens can be determined by varying the information depth (ID) as defined by Delhez et al. (1988) for an x-ray opaque specimen. The information depth may be controlled by making use of the dependence of ID on Bragg angle and by selecting wavelengths which give appropriate x-ray absorption within the specimen.Procedures are outlined for extracting depth profiles for (i) composition from intensity data and (ii) residual strain and crystallite size from peak width data. Results are described for both discrete-peak and Rietvetd pattern-fitting analysis of zirconiaalumina specimens for which preliminary results have been reported by van Riessen et al. (1990).