With the increased use of composite materials, it has become increasingly important to perform analysis that quantifies the amount of crystal lographic orientation. In polymers fibers and films the orientation is used to predict the physical properties, such as strength. To determine the orientation it is first necessary to collect a pole figure on a specific reflection. With the conventional powder diffiactometer equipped with an Eulerian cradle, the data collection procedure often lakes a few hours. Additional time is involved for separate background measurements, which are collected at 2θ positions away from the peak. Also, the intensity from these samples is usually weak, requiring increased data collection time to improve counting statistics.

Using an area detector decreases the data collection time significantly, because the background experiments are performed simultaneously. We can collect the entire pole figure on both polymer fibers and films in less than one hour using a series of “frames.” The pole figure is determined by integrating over 2θ regions in each frame. For fibers the rules developed by Stein are used to calculate the Hermans orientation factors. For films, the rules are generalized to make them more suitable for biaxial orientation, and the White-Spniieli biaxial orientation factors are reported.