# X-ray diffraction from Metals

Is X-ray crystallography is possible for metals? Or not due to absorption?

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Yes, x-ray crystallography has been applied to minerals and metals for almost a century. Wikipedia notes Linus Pauling's work on $\text{Mg}_2\text{Sn}$ leading to his theory of complex ionic crystals in the 1920s. In general, crystallography is a powerful tool in material science research.

I should note that x-rays are typically broken into two categories, hard and soft, based on their energies (though I've heard some jokes about "tender" x-rays at 2-5 keV). These two categories use different optics and I believe that most diffraction experiments use soft x-rays.

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Thanks, My question is whether the absorption is important to note in X-ray diffraction or not? – Riza Mar 4 at 5:40
Typically you scatter on thin materials and you have a strong incident source so it's not important in most cases. If you know the relevant electric properties of the metals you're interested in, then a rough calculation can be done for the amount of attenuation in the field over the depth of the material you're considering. This may be too naive, but you could probably try calculating this using the information in Chapter 9 of Griffiths' Electrodynamics text. I don't know how the thickness of a sheet used in scattering compares to the skin depths of metals... – user2053414 Mar 4 at 6:18