Study of thin films using x-rays

This thesis describes the experimental methods employed for the study of thin films grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) or using deposition processes like ebeam evaporation by x-ray diffraction and reflectivity. In chapter-1 I briefly describe the source and generation of x-rays and how they can be employed for the study. In chapter-2 I deal with the physics of diffraction, the various laws that govern the phenomena and the factors affecting it. In the subsequent I deal with the three kinds of measurement namely powder diffi-action, High Angle x-ray Diffi-action (HAXRD) and finally the Glancing Incidence x-ray Reflectivity (GIXR). For each method I describe and illustrate the parameters that can be evaluated from the respective measurements.

All the measurements have been done using X-PERT, an x-ray diffraction machine from Philips at Jack Maddox Laboratory- Texas Tech University.