High-Voltage Power Supply Assists Precise Screening of New Materials by X-Ray
In recent years, the research and application of new materials have received much attention. To discover more high-performance new materials, researchers need to precisely screen ideal materials from countless candidates. X-ray technology has been widely used for non-destructive characterization of materials and thus for material screening. However, conventional X-ray techniques have limitations such as insufficient radiation intensity, making it difficult to achieve rapid and accurate identification of new materials. Recently, new methods of enhancing X-ray intensity with high-voltage power supply have attracted researchers' interest.
High-voltage power supply can generate voltage up to hundreds of kilovolts, driving electron accelerators to produce X-ray beams with intensity several times stronger than conventional ones. This technique was first proposed by Institute A for Materials Research. They designed a high-voltage pulsed power supply and successfully increased the X-ray intensity by 10 times. Experiments proved that such strong X-rays can not only penetrate deep into the materials, but also capture the characteristic X-ray spectra of materials in a very short time, greatly shortening the testing time.
The materials science department of University B is one of the first research teams to adopt this technology. Using the X-ray driven by the high-voltage power supply, they were able to complete the compositional and structural analysis of 1000 potential magnetic materials within just 1 hour, with precision and speed far exceeding previous techniques. Among their tested samples, a completely new neodymium boride magnetic material was discovered, whose retentivity is 10% higher than the strongest known ferrite magnets. Researchers said that without the X-ray irradiation enhanced by high-voltage power supply, it would have been difficult to find this gem-sized treasure among so many candidate materials.
The work of Institute A and University B has mutually verified the advantages of high-voltage power supply driven X-rays in new material screening. In the near future, this technique is expected to accelerate the discovery and development of new materials and bring more breakthroughs to various technical fields. Currently, some research teams have started optimizing high-voltage power supply systems to further improve X-ray intensity and stability. We look forward to this new technology providing more powerful and efficient support for the research and development of new materials.
