Pair distribution function analysis of ammonium nitrate - evaluation of measuring systems for energetic materials

Energetic materials are often nanocrystalline, amorphous, liquid or gel structured. Therefore, it is difficult to obtain structural information from these materials by conventional structure analysis using X-ray diffraction. The contributions of the last three years show the possibility to achieve structural information with the aid of the pair distribution function (PDF). The energetic material ammonium nitrate was chosen as an example for comparative measurements on laboratory measuring systems with different wavelengths and X-ray optics. The diffraction data were used for calculating the PDFs and the results are evaluated in order to improve measurement conditions for energetic materials. The investigations two years ago demonstrated that it is possible to calculate reasonable PDFs of energetic materials from measurements on laboratory equipment. Last year the theoretical PDFs of ammonium nitrate were calculated and compared with the experimental PDFs. The comparison should show the quality of experimental PDFs and give hints to improve for measurement conditions for energetic materials. This year the first refinements of PDFs from energetic materials are shown.