A new approach

iRHEED is optimized for efficiency, accuracy and ease of use. You start a movie recording with a single tap on the record button, you stop it with another single tap. The data is automatically saved. To define the areas to record RHEED oscillations, you again tap a single button, and define them one after the other, directly on the live image, the sensor number and color are incremented automatically. The data displays on the screen are manipulated with the multitouch gestures you are familiar with from your cell phone. Zoom and pan, the parameter definition for the real-time oscillation fit, all is done directly on the data display. No menus and dialogs are necessary. iRHEED supports you in working smoothly and efficiently. We know that sometimes, you need to react quickly to catch the effect you are hunting for. iRHEED is designed to offer you just that: immediate action and direct access to your data.

At the same time, iRHEED offers an unprecedented degree of configurability. Configuration files with detailed settings for the camera, the colors, filepaths etc. allow you to finetune the behavior down to the lowest level of detail. The code for the graphical user interface is open source, you may modify anything, change icons, colors, sizes, add your own functionality, create interfaces to other programs, whatever you need. But all this rich functionality is 'under the hood', without cluttering the user interface that you use in everyday work. And if you don't need the details, don't worry, the presets are carefully optimized to give you top performance right out of the box.

iRHEED is fast: the camera runs at 100 Hz with a ns time base, tracing even fast RHEED oscillations or growth transients (such as pulse trains in PLD) with several times the resolution you are used to from other RHEED analysis programs. The 12 bit (4096 gray levels) dynamic range, combined with high sensitivity and low noise, result in superior resolution for weak signals. Data are processed and saved with lossless integer algorithms that preserve the full accuracy of the raw data, without rounding errors. All file formats are open and can be directly imported into other programs for further processing, e.g. to create a gif movie for your presentation. Workflows for popular open source programs are available.

Finally, iRHEED is flexible: it runs on almost any PC, no plugin boards are required, the camera attaches to a standard (gigabit) ethernet port. Graphical user interface (GUI) and data processing server do not need to run on the same machine. The GUI may even run on a tablet connected via Wifi, allowing you to carry it wherever you need it in the lab, e.g. when adjusting the sample position or the RHEED gun.