Magnetic Sample Environment for in-situ SAXS/WAXS Measurements on Magnetic Nanoparticles with Shape Anisotropy

A vacuum-compatible magnetic sample environment has been developed and installed at the four-crystal monochromator beamline of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) at the synchrotron radiation facility BESSY II in Berlin, Germany. The design is based on a water-cooled electromagnetic coil setup and is aimed to provide a magnetic flux density of up to 900 mT at the sample position. The magnetic field is applied in order to align or arrange magnetic nanoparticles which can then be measured using small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS). This can be beneficial in the analysis of particles with arbitrary shape. The corresponding scattering patterns are collected as 2D images on vacuum-compatible variants of the PILATUS 1M and PILATUS 100K detectors.