Characterization of FeS2 Nanomaterial using X-ray Diffraction Spectroscopy

Crystalline materials can be characterized by using a powerful nondestructive technique, called X-ray Diffraction (XRD) spectroscopy. Using this technique, information on the crystal structure, phases, and preferred crystal orientations of a material are generated. Besides this, XRD can also be used to get structural parameters such as average grain size, crystallinity, strain and crystal defects. X-ray diffraction peaks are produced by constructive interference of a monochromatic beam of X-rays dispersed at specific angles from each set of lattice planes in the material. In this work, characterization of semiconductor FeS2 nanocrystal is conducted using XRD. The XRD data were collected by using Roguku Ultima III diffractometer using Cu kα radiation in focused beam geometry. We calculate lattice constant, crystal structure and grain size of the materials at different crystal planes indicated by their corresponding miller indices.