Inelastic scattering of synchrotron radiation from electrons and nuclei for lattice dynamics studies

The inelastic scattering of x-rays, one of the the first applications of x-rays to the field of condensed matter physics, has been rejuvenated in the last decade. The availability of synchrotron radiation from wiggler and undulator sources combined with advances in monochromatization of the incident beam and analysis of the scattered beam with meV resolution led to the measurement of phonon dispersion relations. In addition, the use of Mossbauer nuclei as scatterer and analyzers has led to the discovery of the inelastic nuclear resonant scattering technique. This new method allows extraction of partial phonon density of states from amorphous materials, thin films, multilayers and interfaces, and liquids