Other research projects with this material include the observation of the wide-angle scattering pattern (WAXS) of nanoporous gold which change for instance after annealing steps due to internal stresses. Setups and environments for ex-situ and in-situ experiments in order to investigate initial and advanced stages of the synthesis, i.e. the formation of the microstructure of these materials, are developed.

Non-porous materials also are part of our research work with the Xeuss. For example, we did investigations of precipitates in Mg rare earth alloys. The superstructure of the precipitate phase causes additional WAXS patterns, which we could nicely observe.

Nevertheless, we are not restricted to structural metallic materials. A research project of Julia Keppler (Wageningen University) and Vasyl Haramus (Institute of Metallic Biomaterials, Hereon) is connected with production of artificial milk and cheese from recombinantly produced milk proteins. The critical task is the formation of solution of casein micelles (size above 100 of nm) including “cherry stones” colloidal calcium phosphate nanoclusters (~ 2 nm). SAXS data provides information on variation of morphology of such multi scale structure vs preparation conditions.

Having the instrument in the lab gives us unlimited time for making measurements