A novel approach to micro-sample X-ray powder diffraction using nylon loops

A novel method for sample mounting to obtain powder diffraction from very small amounts of samples (ranging from micrograms down to a few nanograms), by using a combination of multiwire area detector, three-circle diffractometer, monochromatic Cu Kα radiation and 10 µm nylon loops, has been developed. This method exploits customary single-crystal approaches to collect the powder diffraction pattern, which overcomes many of the limitations of conventional powder X-ray diffraction.