Grazing exit small angle X-ray scattering on grain formation in polycrystalline metal films

We recently proposed a new grazing exit geometry for measuring the small-angle scattering from thin film materials, which we call GESAXS, to contrast with the successful grazing incidence version, GISAXS. The technique is particularly useful for probing nanostructured thin film materials, especially when the coherence properties of the beam are employed. Here we demonstrate the application of GESAXS to evaporated metal films, prepared using an in-situ diffraction chamber, to investigate how their structure evolves upon annealing. Contrasting behavior is seen for Au, which preserves a roughly exponential distribution of domain sizes, and Fe for which the size distribution narrows by an Ostwald ripening process.