EXTENDED X-RAY ABSORPTION FINE-STRUCTURE - A MODERN STRUCTURAL TOOL IN MATERIALS SCIENCE

The extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) technique has now been established to be a very powerful and sometimes unique way of probing the local atomic structure of all forms of matter, particularly since the availability of highly intense synchrotron radiation in the X-ray region. In this review the physical mechanism associated with the EXAFS phenomenon is presented in the light of the single-scattering formalism. The use of synchrotron radiation as a light source for EXAFS phenomenon is presented in the light of the single-scattering formalism. The use of synchrotron radiation as a light source for EXAFS experiments and the use of data analysis to extract quantitative structural information are discussed by way of examples.