A provider of high quality powder x-ray diffraction services located in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Pacific Peak Diffraction was founded by Jacob Kabel in 2025.
From 2010 to 2024 Jacob ran various facilities locally at the University of British Columbia specializing in microanalysis. He has run laboratories that specialized in powder x-ray diffraction and electron beam analysis. He has a passion for delivering accessible, reliable services on reasonable timelines that fit the needs of customers.
If you don't have any particular need for x-ray diffraction, but would like some advice on other techniques, feel free to reach out.
Powder x-ray diffraction is used for a lot of purposes, but we use it for directly determining the identities and amounts of crystalline materials, usually minerals, in mixed powder. With carefully calibrated models, it can also give the amounts of poorly crystallized materials such as clays.
Besides the absolute or relative amounts of the different phases present, powder x-ray diffraction can provide detailed information on the chemistry of some samples, such as the level of solid solutioning occurring.
We employ a set of custom powder mills, a Bruker D6 Phaser diffractometer, the ICDD Powder Diffraction File database, and Bruker's TOPAS software package.
Meet the Bruker D6 PhaserAll of our services are centered around powder x-ray diffraction, but we have several offerings depending on the type of information you require.
The classic; Rietveld semi-quantitative phase analysis. Rietveld will provide you with the relative amounts of the crystalline components of a sample, plus any disordered phases for which we have suitable empirical models, and derived elemental totals for reconiliation with other assays.
Very similar to Rietveld, but an internal standard spike of pure crystalline material is added to attempt to put the results on an absolute basis. This yields the crystalline component amounts, modeled disordered phase amounts, as well as a remainder that is labeled as amorphous. A derived elemental assay is also supplied for reconciliation.
For when you just want to know what's in there, and don't particularly care about amounts. This is especially useful when you only have a small amount of material.
The clay component is separated out, made into oriented mounts, and subjected to various physical or chemical treatments to tell you exactly what kind(s) of clay you have.
Are you a hobbyist rockhound or mineralogist? Maybe a prospector? Do you have a chunk of mineral you'd like identified? Well chip a (small) piece off and we'll give it a go and tell you just the main mineral present.
Maybe you have particular needs. Just data collection? Just data analysis? If you need something that isn't listed, reach out.
This collection of technical notes is available to describe the implementation of some of our offerings.
We pride ourselves on transparent, straightforward pricing. If you have some work that you don't see priced out below, please contact us.
| Service | Price |
|---|---|
| Rietveld Semi-Quantitative (Standard Turnaround) | $220.00 |
| Rietveld Semi-Quantitative (5 Business Day RUSH) | $330.00 |
| Internal Standard Quantitative (Standard Turnaround) | $250.00 |
| Internal Standard Quantitative (5 Business Day RUSH) | $375.00 |
| Qualitative Analysis | $110.00 |
| Clay Separation and Speciation | $150.00 |
| Rockhound Special | $70.00 |
Conveniently located in South Vancouver, our facility is open from 9AM-5PM daily to accept shipments.