X-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) experiments were carried out on a series of ferroelectric materials PbZr1−xTixO3 (PZT) sx=0.40,0.47,0.49,0.55d to study the local structure around Ti and Zr atoms in each sample. Based on the fact that PZT has a single phase in the morphotropic phase boundary (MPB) from the x-ray diffraction measurements, both extended XAFS (EXAFS) and x-ray absorption nea...

Magnetic X-ray absorption fine-structure (XAFS) spectra have been measured for Ni-Mn alloys. The magnetic XAFS in the near-edge region (X-ray absorption near-edge structure, XANES) and X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) of the Mn and Ni K-edge for Ni(1-x)Mn(x) (x = 0.25, 0.24 and 0.20) show that (i) the local magnetic structure around the Mn atom is quite different from that around the Ni...

Gabbroic rocks were collected at Mount Tsukuba in Japan, and their XAFS images were studied using a projection-type X-ray fluorescence (XRF) microscope, which is a powerful new tool recently developed for extremely rapid imaging. The instrument employs a grazing-incidence arrangement in order that primary X-rays illuminate the whole sample surface, as well as parallel-beam optics and an extreme...

UV-vis spectroscopy was used in a combined in-situ UV-vis/XAFS spectroscopic setup to study the synchrotron radiation effect on aqueous homogeneous copper solutions. Two different systems were studied. In the first study, the focus was on a copper bipyridine-catalyzed oxidation of benzyl alcohol to benzaldehyde with 2,2,6,6- tetramethylpiperidinyl-1-oxy and base as cocatalysts. It was found tha...

In combination with a single-crystal diamond anvil cell (DAC), a polycapillary half-lens (PHL) re-focusing optics has been used to perform high-pressure extended X-ray absorption fine-structure measurements. It is found that a large divergent X-ray beam induced by the PHL leads the Bragg glitches from single-crystal diamond to be broadened significantly and the intensity of the glitches to be r...

X-ray absorption fine-structure (XAFS) data were obtained for the V K-edge for a series of anisotropic single crystals of (Cr(x)V(1-x))(2)O(3). The data and the results were compared for the as-prepared bulk single crystals (measured in fluorescence in two different orientations) and those ground to powder (measured in transmission). For the bulk single crystals, the glancing-emergent-angle (GE...

Interactions between metals and activated sludge microorganisms substantially affect the speciation, immobilization, transport, and bioavailability of trace heavy metals in biological wastewater treatment plants. In this study, the interaction of Cu(II), a typical heavy metal, onto activated sludge microorganisms was studied in-depth using a multi-technique approach. The complexing structure of...

SiO2-supported Ni phosphide catalysts are highly active toward the non-oxidative coupling of methane (NOCM) reaction, and their catalytic activity is strongly dependent on Ni:P ratio. We analyzed using X-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) to elucidate structure-catalytic relationship. Because only Ni2P was available as a reference material, we calculated theoretical XAFS based crystal structu...