Scatex

The New Scatterfree Pinholes

Parasitic scattering caused by apertures is a well-known problem in X-ray analytics, which forces users and manufacturers to adapt their experimental setups to this unwanted phenomenon. Increased measurement times due to lower photon fluxes, a lower resolution caused by an enlarged beam stop, a larger beam defining pinhole-to-sample distance due to the integration of an antiscatter guard and generally a lower signal-to-noise ratio leads to a loss in data quality.

Key Features of SCATEX

• no parasitic pinhole scattering

• resolution and photon flux enhancement

• easier and faster pinhole alignment

• no antiscatter pinhole needed

• special solutions possible

• successfully tested at synchrotrons

• and SAXS home-lab systems

A reduction of the parasitic aperture scattering is possible by using scatterless slits. However, since the noise signal is generally still too high, synchrotron facilities, for example, are required to further use antiscatter guards. Furthermore, (scatterless) slit systems suffer from the rectangular beam shaping which increases the beam stop size by at least 41.4% (corresponds to √2) compared to a circular beam shaping pinhole. Thus, beam definition with pinholes is advantageous as it enables a considerably higher resolution.

The new SCATEX pinholes produce almost no parasitic scattering and overcome the aforementioned problems: hence, antiscatter pinholes become dispensable, system sizes shrink, resolution and photon flux increase, data quality improves.

SCATEX Pinholes for SAXS Home-lab Systems

SCATEX Pinholes for Synchrotrons

A SAXS setup with a typical 3-pinhole collimation system. This illustration clearly shows that even with an antiscatter pinhole the beam stop needs a large diameter due to the parasitic scattering. With SCATEX pinholes the antiscatter pinhole becomes dispensable and the beam stop only needs to have the size of the primary beam. This enables a higher resolution and photon flux.