Basic study on electric optical devices for x-rays using piezoelectric single crystals

Basic study about electric optical devices for x-rays was performed using the change of Bragg diffraction angles caused by the change of lattice spacing d of a piezoelectric single crystal on applying electric field. In this experiment, an α-quartz was chosen because of its abundant already-known physical properties in spite of low piezoelectricity. Both macroscopic deformation and the change of thickness of an α-quartz were measured when an electric field was applied. On the experiment, x-ray diffraction showed peak shift to the amount of 1.8 minutes, of which the value was one order of magnitude larger than that expected from the calculation of lattice spacing. This fact suggested that not only the change of lattice spacing, but also macroscopic deformation could contribute to the peak shift. Therefore, macroscopic deformation should be taken account of the development of electric optical devices. (Y. Kazumata)