Our Inel CPS-120 x-ray powder diffractometer
has a large-angle position-sensitive detector, seen to
the right in the figure as a brown arc with a red nameplate.
X-ray diffraction patterns are acquired at all angles
simultaneously, instead of stepping over 1024 points
in two-theta angle, for example. Data acquisition is
typically 200 times faster than with our stepping diffractometers,
although there can be signal-to-noise problems when the
sample emits strong fluorescence radiation under the
primary beam. The electronics for the PSD (matched amplifiers,
pulse shapers, digital delay unit, time-amplitude converter,
multichannel analyzer, and computer interface buffer)
are at the left of the figure.
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