Kinematic scattering in the nanodiffraction limit: Experimental testing on a model system

Diffraction from ultra-thin single crystal films is predicted to deviate from what is usually known for bulk materials. For example, the position, integrated intensity and integral breadth of a diffraction peak cannot be related to the lattice spacing of the material or the number of unit cells along the diffraction vector. These predictions bear important consequences for the analysis of diffraction patterns from nanocrystals. They have not yet been confronted to experimental measurements performed on simple model systems. The aim of this proposed experiment is to investigate in detail the diffraction patterns from very clean ultrathin SOI films and confront these results to kinematic scattering calculations taking into account all nanodiffarction artefacts.