Among the many testing and characterization equipment acquired by ARCI during the past decade, one of the more important facilities is the X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) system. ARCI procured a model PW 1840/01 XRD system with PW 1830/40 Compact tabletop 3 kW X-ray generator system from Philips, The Netherlands. This system has been used regularly for XRD investigations of materials that were developed at ARCI till around 2,000.

As ARCI’s spectrum of activities gradually expanded to include new surface modification techniques, including laser surface treatment, the need for a more precise XRD method to quantitatively identify the presence of stable as well as metastable-phases was increasingly felt. Hence, it was decided to procure a more advanced XRD system, capable of suppressing the fluorescence radiation emitted from the substrate materials and reducing/averaging out the preferred orientation of grains in coated samples so as to quantify the phases observed in the pattern. A Bruker AXS make, D8 Advance model XRD system was installed at ARCI. The above XRD system, along with other facilities such as the Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectrometer (ICP-AES), X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometer (XRF), Electrochemical Corrosion Testing Equipment and Cyclic Corrosion Chamber, have enabled the Centre for Structural and Chemical Characterization to provide requisite support to various programmes taken up at ARCI.

ICP-AES system