ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces X-ray diffraction techniques that are commonly used to characterize thin films deposited on substrates. X-ray diffraction is a powerful nondestructive technique that can be utilized for phase identification, orientation determination, lattice parameter measurement, assessment of crystal quality, and determination of crystal structure. Four-circle diffractometer is an X-ray diffraction apparatus that is widely utilized for characterizing thin films. Thin film has much weaker diffraction peaks than the substrate. Then, a slight misalignment of the sample may cause no peaks from the film. X-ray diffraction is a useful tool for comparatively analyzing the residual stresses of thin films. Grazing incidence X-ray diffraction is a technique to overcome not surface sensitive X-ray diffractions. A thin film with high dislocation density has some angular spread in the crystal axes. This structure can be viewed as a structure consisting of mosaic blocks, each slightly disoriented from one another.
