Graphical method for analyzing wide-angle x-ray diffraction.

Wide-angle X-ray diffraction on large-scale laser facility is a well-established experimental method, which is used to study the shock response of single crystal materials by recording X-rays diffracted from numerous lattice planes. We present a three-dimensional graphical method for extracting physical understanding from the raw diffraction data in shocked experiments. This method advances beyond the previous iterative process by turning abstract diffraction theories in shock physics into mathematic issues, providing three-dimensional visualization and quick extraction of data characteristics. The capability and versatility of the method are exhibited by identifying lattice planes for single crystal samples with different orientations and quantitatively measuring the lattice compression and rotation under dynamic loading.