DiffAbs allows to study a large variety of materials, from metallic alloys/ semiconductors/oxides to polymers (natural, artificial, synthetic) or bio-minerals, with various homogeneous or heterogeneous forms such as polycrystalline, epitaxial or amorphous. It combines a set of analytical techniques such as X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), resonant X-Ray Diffraction (DAFS or AXRD), X-ray Absorption (XAS) and X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopies. The interest to combine these techniques is to ensure that all experiments are carried out on the same region of the sample, and under identical mechanical or physico-chemical conditions (temperature, pressure, reactive atmosphere, etc.).

DiffAbs is located on a bending magnet and provides a monochromatic X-ray beam, tunable in the 3-23 keV energy range.Thanks to the development of two complementary optics, DiffAbs can presently operate in two modes: the “standard beam” mode, obtained from the main optics (mirrors and monochromator) and the “microbeam” mode by adding a secondary focusing optics (using mirrors in KB geometry or zone plates).