Xanes Specroscopic Diagnostics of the 3D Local Atomic Structure of Nanostructured Materials

A review of current works on XANES spectroscopy applied for the determination of parameters of a threedimensional local atomic structure of nanostructured materials is given. Special attention is paid to a new method based on the theoretical analysis of XANES spectra by means of multivariate interpolation. The uniqueness of the technique consists not only in the highly accurate (up to 0.01 A) determination of interatomic distances in materials without a long-range order in the atomic arrangement but also the estimation of the angular distribution of atoms (i.e. chemical bond angles) in any condensed materials. Several types of nanostructured materials, including coordination compounds, semiconductor quantum dots, nanosized structures in quasicrystals and extraterrestrial materials are given as examples.