The possibility to measure in situ the temporal evolution of atomic-scale structures under dynamic conditions (i.e., temperature, pressure, strain, chemical potential…) is essential to understand many phenomena of interest to materials science and solid state chemistry. Such experiments are generally carried out using powder diffraction even when very high time resolution are required, or if the samples are amorphous or nanocrystalline. Due to advances in detector technology, powder diffraction data of sufficient quality for quantitative analysis can now be collected with millisecond time resolution [1].

If samples are sufficiently crystalline to separate the contributions of the different component crystallites (which depends on the incident beam size, where sizes down to 100s of nanometers are now achievable) and time resolution of minutes or more is satisfactory, such experiments can be carried out using polycrystalline methods [2]. Such experiments utilize multiple detectors and analytical techniques [3] to simultaneously probe length scales from Ångstoms (crystallography) to mm (sample size) by using multiple detectors. Crystal structure, microstructure, orientation, position and shape can be simultaneously measured for each crystal in polycrystalline samples, giving the actual distribution (rather than just averages) of properties in the sample, as well as the relationships between grains, and the time evolution of these properties.

In this presentation we will describe the techniques currently utilised to extract maximum information in the characteristic time scale appropriate for a given experiment.

[1] J-C Labiche, O Matho, S Pascarelli, MA Newton, G Guilera Ferre, C Curfs, GBM Vaughan, A Homs, Rev. Sci. Instrum 78 091301 (2007)

[2] D Juul Jensen, EM Lauridsen, L Margulies, HF Poulsen, S Schmidt, HO Soerensen, GBM Vaughan, Materials Today 9 18 (2006)

[3] http://fable.wiki.sourceforge.net/

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1. FeCoBSiNb bulk metallic glasses with Cu additions
2. Synchrotron radiation induced crystallization of amorphous Barium Titanate