Abstract
The study of materials by diffraction methods started about
100 years ago with the pioneering experiment of Laue, Friedrich
and Knipping, when the first X-ray diffraction patterns of
single crystals were obtained (Friedrich et al., 1912). This was
the beginning of a rapid development fostering many
diffraction-based methods and techniques, which is still
continuing. The measurement of rocking curves and the
associated derived quantitative parameters, such as the ‘full
width at half-maximum’ (FWHM) of the curves, has been
performed since at least 1921 (Davis & Stempel, 1921) by
exploiting the X-ray diffraction (XRD) properties of crystals.
Since then, this has become one of the most powerful methods
for the diffraction-based characterization of crystalline materials.
The experimentally closely related method of X-ray
diffraction imaging or X-ray diffraction topography has been
used since about 1931 (Berg, 1931). Soon after World War II,
the requirements of the electronics industry for the nondestructive
analysis of defects in semiconductor materials like
silicon and germanium (and others) boosted the improvement
of these methods to their modern high-resolution variants like
high-resolution X-ray diffraction and in particular high-resolution
and high strain sensitivity X-ray topography (Bond &
Andrus, 1952; Lang, 1957). This evolution was additionally
accelerated in the late 1970s by the use of synchrotrons as
dedicated X-ray sources and later on, starting in the 1990s, by
the use of third-generation synchrotron sources....