Computed depth profile method of X-ray diffraction and its application to Ni/Pd films

This paper develops a method that uses parallel beam X-ray diffraction (XRD) for profiling structure and phase distributions along with the depth. This method was used to characterize the Ni/Pd thin film sample and to obtain the phase depth profile. In the data analysis procession, the non-negative least square (NNLS) algorithm was introduced to resolve the ill-posed inverse problem that emerged in the solving procession. The grains with same crystallographic orientation were measured when the incident angles varied in the designed diffraction manner and the influence of the texture in the films was avoided properly. It should be noticed that this method is employed for the first time to analyze a system containing more than two phases.