Image processing for grazing incidence fast atom diffraction

Grazing incidence fast atom diffraction (GIFAD, or FAD) has developed as a surface sensitive technique. GIFAD is less sensitive to thermal decoherence but more demanding in terms of surface coherence, the mean distance between defects. Such high quality surfaces can be obtained from freshly cleaved crystals or in a molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) chamber where a GIFAD setup has been installed allowing in situ operation. Based on recent publications by Atkinson et al. and Debiossac et al, the paper describes in detail the basic steps needed to measure the relative intensities of the diffraction spots. Care is taken to outline the underlying physical assumptions.