A cold storage material having a large thermal capacity in a ultra-low temperature range of 10 K or less and being highly durable against thermal shock and mechanical vibration. The cold storage material contains a rare earth oxysulfide ceramic represented by the general formula R.sub.2O.sub.2S in which R is one or more kinds of rare earth elements selected from La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb, Lu, and Y, and Al.sub.2O.sub.3 having a specific surface area of 0.3 m.sup.2/g to 11 m.sup.2/g is added to the cold storage material.

A method of analyzing a sample imaged by electron backscatter diffraction. The method comprises identifying a plurality of Kikuchi bands in an electron backscatter diffraction image of a position on the sample. The method further comprises forming, for each identified Kikuchi band, a respective vector representation of said Kikuchi band based at least in part on an estimate of the position on the sample. A configuration of the sample is determined by identifying a particular set of expected vector representations from a plurality of sets of expected vector representations as matching the vector representations of the plurality of identified Kikuchi bands.

Methods and systems for characterizing dimensions and material properties of semiconductor devices by full beam x-ray scatterometry are described herein. A full beam x-ray scatterometry measurement involves illuminating a sample with an X-ray beam and detecting the intensities of the resulting zero diffraction order and higher diffraction orders simultaneously for one or more angles of incidence relative to the sample. The simultaneous measurement of the direct beam and the scattered orders enables high throughput measurements with improved accuracy. The full beam x-ray scatterometry system includes one or more photon counting detectors with high dynamic range and thick, highly absorptive crystal substrates that absorb the direct beam with minimal parasitic backscattering. In other aspects, model based measurements are performed based on the zero diffraction order beam, and measurement performance of the full beam x-ray scatterometry system is estimated and controlled based on properties of the measured zero order beam.

A method for X-Ray Scattering material analysis, in particular Small Angle X-ray Scattering material analysis for generating and directing an incident X-ray beam along a propagation direction to a sample held in a sample environment executing a sample measurement process. An apparatus adapted to carry out such a method is also disclosed.

An in vitro human-tissue analysis and communication system produces a quantitative diagnostic indicator for in vitro human-tissue analyzed by the system. The system includes a human-tissue-analyzer subsystem with at least one human-tissue analyzer that analyzes in vitro samples of human tissue and produces a quantitative-diagnostic indicator of each sample. The system also includes a two-way communication subsystem that allows the human-tissue-analyzer subsystem to send and receive information relevant to the quantitative-diagnostic indicators. The human-tissue-analyzer subsystem includes at least one tissue diffractometer operatively coupled to a computer database over a network, and configured for acquisition of the in vitro samples, and transfer of the corresponding human-tissue data to the computer database over the network. A computer processor is operatively coupled to the tissue diffractometer, and receives, transmits and processes the human-tissue data using a data analytics algorithm that provides a quantitative-diagnostic indicator of the in vitro sample of human tissue.

A method for measuring the stress of a concave section of a test subject which comprises a metal and has a surface and a concave section, the method including: a detection step for detecting, using a two-dimensional detector, a diffraction ring of diffracted X-rays which is formed by causing X-rays to be incident on the concave section and to be diffracted by the concave section; and a calculation step for calculating the stress of the concave section on the basis of the detection results during the detection step. Therein, the detection step involves causing X-rays to be incident on each of a plurality of sites inside the concave section of the test subject, and detecting, using a two-dimensional detector, the diffraction ring formed by the diffraction of the X-rays by the concave section.

An evaluation device includes an X-ray diffraction measuring device configured to acquire a first X-ray locking curve having a first main peak and a first sub-peak partially overlapping the first main peak by measuring an X-ray locking curve of a first portion of a sample having a crystalline material. The evaluation device includes an analysis device configured to separate the first sub-peak from the first main peak, perform first evaluation of a crystal defects or distortion of the sample based on a peak position, peak intensity, or a half width of the separated first sub-peak, and output the first evaluation.

A device for analyzing a diffraction pattern of a mixture uses a fitting pattern including a term related to a known target pattern, which indicates a target component and which is changeable in shape with use of a shape parameter, and a term related to an unknown pattern, which indicates a residual group. The fitting pattern is fitted to an observed pattern with a given value assigned to the shape parameter and with the unknown pattern set to an initial pattern. The unknown pattern is then changed, to thereby fit the fitting pattern to the observed pattern. The fitting described above is executed with use of a plurality of shape parameters each of which is the shape parameter, and a calculation result related to one of the plurality of shape parameters is selected.

Crystallographic information of crystalline sample can be determined from one or more three-dimensional diffraction pattern datasets generated based on diffraction patterns collected from multiple crystals. The crystals for diffraction pattern acquisition may be selected based on a sample image. At a location of each selected crystal, multiple diffraction patterns of the crystal are acquired at different angles of incidence by tilting the electron beam, wherein the sample is not rotated while the electron beam is directed at the selected crystal.

A method for improving the quality/integrity of an EBSD/TKD map, wherein each data point is assigned to a corresponding grid point of a sample grid and represents crystal information based on a Kikuchi pattern detected for the grid point; comprising determining a defective data point of the EBSD/TKD map and a plurality of non-defective neighboring data points, comparing the position of Kikuchi bands of a Kikuchi pattern detected for a grid point corresponding to the defective data point with the positions of bands in at least one simulated Kikuchi pattern corresponding to crystal information of the neighboring data points and assigning the defective data point the crystal information of one of the plurality of neighboring data point based on the comparison.