Capillaries (extra information)
IMPORTANT NOTE: Users must supply their own capillaries. Make sure you plan ahead as there may be lead times for ordering large volumes of capillaries.
Dimensions
Standard dimensions of capillaries used at SAXS/WAXS are 80 mm length, 1.5 mm outer diameter (OD), 0.01 mm wall thickness. It may be possible to instead use 1 mm OD or 2 mm OD capillaries, but this is not recommended. It is important to use 0.01 mm wall thickness capillaries to achieve high X-ray transmission and they also provide low background scattering intensity. If you bring capillaries with thicker walls, then we cannot guarantee you will get good results from your samples. I.e. The capillaries need to be specifically for X-ray experiments, NMR and other similar capillaries are not interchangeable and will give you no results, or very poor results.
Material
We recommend using quartz capillaries. Quartz capillaries are more robust to handle and provide better (lower/ less noisy) background especially in the low-q region compared to special glass. Generally its just not worth trying to save a few dollars on them.
Preparation
Prefill the capillaries and bring them sealed and labeled.
We recommend sealing capillaries. Use wax, hot glue guns, BluTack, epoxy glue or any other non-leaking method of your choice.
Suppliers
There are multiple suppliers available for capillaries for X-ray scattering. Some options include:
Hilgenberg GmbH
Strauchgraben 2
34323 Malsfeld
GermanyCharles Supper Company
18 Lyman Street, Suite 235
Westborough, MA 01581 - U.S.A
Note: The Australian Synchrotron and ANSTO are not affiliated with any of the listed companies, nor do they endorse any company over others. These options are listed to help plan ahead for your experiment only.