From my understanding, further evidence for the structures of molecules can be obtained from single crystal X-ray crystallography which involved irradiating a crystal with X-rays and looking at the positions and intensities of the diffracted beams. It gives a 3D picture of the molecule with bond lengths and angles. But does X-ray spectroscopy exist and if so how is it different?
What’s the difference between X-ray crystallography and X-ray spectroscopy
spectroscopyx-ray-crystallographyx-rays
Related Solutions
The main purpose of microscopy is to observe things that cannot be or are hardly observed by naked eye. To justify the purpose one can utilize everything that suits the purpose. For example, it can be different light paths coming from different parts of a sample or different reflection from different parts of a sample etc. Or in terms of AFM it can be different interaction forces between tip and different parts of a sample. So whatever physical quantity which varies depending on the position on a sample can be utilized to produce an image. And so can be utilized different spectroscopic features (intensity, wavelength, phase, FWHM of a peak etc.).
The main purpose of spectroscopy is to understand how matter responds to light (or electrons, whatever), to find one-to-one correspondence between spectra and material internal structures, to classify thus materials according to their reaction on light and so on. In this case acquiring image is not necessary, just spectra would be enough.
As a conclusion, microscopy and spectroscopy differ by their historically initial purposes. However they can cooperate effectively with each other. For example, as was said above, one can make an image utilizing the power of spectroscopy. Or, vice versa, one can use the power of microscopy to acquire spectrum from a tiny spot of a sample (either on surface or inside).
And here is the answer to the related question:
Taking all of these into account, considering given two words, we should separate prefix from the main part of the word. For example, in the word "microspectroscopy" the main part is "spectroscopy" and the prefix is "micro", so it is spectroscopy in the first instance. But it utilizes the power of microscopy. I think you can now deduce the meaning of "spectromicroscopy".
The diffraction pattern is essentially a Fourier transform of the product of the illumination beam and the diffractive structure. The envelope of the power spectrum of the far-field diffraction pattern is determined by the width of the illumination beam. See Fraunhofer diffraction.
Best Answer
In x-ray crystallography, the x-ray spectrum is known. The objective is to determine the crystal structure.
A crystal spectrometer for x-rays inverts this: a crystal whose structure is known is used to determine the spectrum. But there are also grating spectrometers for x-rays, and nondispersive spectrometers that measure the energy each photon deposits in a detector rather than dispersing the radiation by wavelength.