Extraction of plutonium-containing microcrystals from Hanford soil using a focused ion beam for single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis

Herein, the successful use of a focused ion beam/scanning electron microscope to prepare microsamples of radioactive single crystals for X-ray diffraction analysis is reported. This technique was used to extract and analyze crystalline Pu-containing particles as small as 28 µm 3 from Hanford soil taken from the 216-Z-9 waste crib, which were then crystallographically characterized using single-crystal X-ray diffraction to confirm the cubic...