Over the last two decades it has been demonstrated that high-energy synchrotron radiation is a powerful tool for in situ materials characterization. The pertinent features are high penetration power through bulk samples and complex sample environments, (sub) micron spatial resolution, and compression of reciprocal space to forward direction where it can be imaged on a stationary area detector. Therefore, fast mappings of reciprocal and orientation space are possible by sample rotation around a single axis.
PETRA III is a brilliant high-energy synchrotron facility and a particularly powerful source of high-energy X-rays. The Swedish Materials Science Beamline (SMS) is dedicated to materials research using high-energy X-rays with photon energies of 40 to 150 keV. Here the status of the in-line branch (P21.2) will be reported which is optimized for the (simultaneous) combination of WAXS, SAXS, and imaging techniques on bulk and surface samples. Furthermore, the beamsize can be varied from (sub) micron to several millimeters and various reciprocal space resolutions are available. The SMS beamline is in user operation since July 2019.
The layout of the SMS beamline and pertinent instrumentation will be reviewed briefly. The beamline capabilities will be illustrated by case studies mostly on structural polycrystalline bulk materials but also including surface corrosion. Precipitation kinetics during annealing have been characterized by a combination of wide and small angle scattering. Tomographic imaging and wide angle scattering have been employed to characterize the load distribution and damage evolution during deformation. In addition to grain averaging powder diffraction also grain resolved diffraction is performed. Case studies include so called far-field diffraction (where the orientation, size, position, and strain state of grains are probed) and high-resolution reciprocal space mapping investigating the evolution of the dislocation structure within individual grains during 3D-printing. Finally, future developments will be anticipated