Angular X-ray Cross-Correlation Analysis (AXCCA): Basic Concepts and Recent Applications to Soft Matter and Nanomaterials

Abstract

Angular X-ray cross-correlation analysis (AXCCA) is a technique which allows quantitativemeasurement of the angular anisotropy of X-ray diraction patterns and provides insights into theorientational order in the system under investigation. This method is based on the evaluation of theangular cross-correlation function of the scattered intensity distribution on a two-dimensional (2D)detector and further averaging over many diraction patterns for enhancement of the anisotropicsignal. Over the last decade, AXCCA was successfully used to study the anisotropy in varioussoft matter systems, such as solutions of anisotropic particles, liquid crystals, colloidal crystals,superlattices composed by nanoparticles, etc. This review provides an introduction to the techniqueand gives a survey of the recent experimental work in which AXCCA in combination with micro- ornanofocused X-ray microscopy was used to study the orientational order in various soft matter systems