What is BraggCalculator?

BraggCalculator is a simple, GUI-based tool to quickly evaluate the Bragg equation for x-ray reflection:

mλ = 2d sin θ

where m is the order of reflection, λ the x-ray wavelength, d the lattice spacing of the crystal, and θ the angle of incidence with respect to the surface.

BraggCalculator will be part of a larger suite to design x-ray optical instruments that is currently under development.

Overview

• evaluates the Bragg equation for any given x-ray energy or wavelength, lattice spacing, and reflection order
• calculates both the angle to the surface and to the normal
• PDF and text export
• adjustable precision
• load/save files
• Undo/Redo (mainly for me as a learning experience)

Build instructions

BraggCalculator requires Qt5 or Qt6, which can be obtained from https://www.qt.io.

Once Qt is installed, run the following:

qmake
(n)make

This creates an executable in the binaries/<operating system>/release folder.