Book Description
The x-ray standing wave technique is a sensitive tool for determining the position of atoms within a crystal, adsorbed onto a surface or distributed within the crystal or at the interface. The technique is based on the x-ray standing wave field that arises as a result of the interference of coherently related incident and reflected plane waves and is described by the theory of dynamical diffraction of x-rays. When two coherently related traveling plane waves having the same wavelength pass through each other their superposition results in a standing wave of period D = lambda/2 sin theta; where lambda is the wavelength of the traveling waves, and 2 theta is the relative angle between them. The generation of a standing wave requires both an incident and a reflected wave and the letter can be generated by either Bragg diffraction or total external reflection.
