Maxthal furnace for micro-diffraction at high temperature

Diffraction studies in a temperature range from RT up to 1200^oC, in vacuum, in air or oxygen atmosphere, can be performed using the Maxthal furnace (with a nominal power of 80W), developed by B. Gorges and the SES group at the ESRF [1].

Its compact design ensures high mechanical stability. High warming speed (10 °C/min) and high cooling rate, or quenching at 10 °C/sec are also possible. The furnace design is compatible with a standard goniometer head from Huber (see figure 1). Different mountings are available on ID01 which guarantee the possibility of using this furnace in vertical and horizontal positions for both, horizontal and vertical scattering geometries. In figure 2 the new mounting with an integrated vertical translation stage (8mm travel, step size 1μm), is shown, that allows the use of the vertical rotation stage of ID01 (Hphi) while keeping the furnace in the horizontal plane.

The mechanical stability of the setup makes it suitable also for micro-diffraction experiments for which Be compound refractive lenses must be used as focusing device.

Figure 1. Photograph of the furnace mounted on a motorised Huber goniometer head.	Figure 2. Scheme of the furnace holder for the Hphi motor, to allow vertical scattering geometry keeping the sample in the horizontal plane.

In the near future, micrometric precision x and y translation stages, and an azimuthal rotation stage will be included in the mounting shown in Fig. 2 to increase degrees of freedom of the sample.

[1] Bernard Gorges, Hugo Vitoux, Pablo Redondo, Gerardina Carbone, Cristian Mocouta, Gemma Guilera, SRI Proceedings ref. SRI09 121 (2009)