TinyLev offers a cheap and portable way to use acoustic levitation at synchrotron beamlines.
Acoustic levitation suspends matter using acoustic radiation pressure to balance the force of gravity. It has potential applications in crystallography, spectroscopy, chemistry, and the study of organisms in microgravity. However, conventional acoustic levitation systems rely on Langevin horns, which are large and expensive pieces of equipment that are complicated to set up. TinyLev, initially developed by researchers at the University of Bristol, is a small single-axis non-resonant acoustic levitator constructed from off-the-shelf components. In work recently published in Scientific Reports, engineers at Diamond led by Dr Pete Docker used the TinyLev system to dispense and contain sample droplets in protein crystallography experiments. Their novel method facilitates efficient X-ray data acquisition in dynamic studies at room temperature.
>Read more on the Diamond Light Source website
Picture: Left: Photograph showing the TinyLev system mounted on the I24 beamline with the X-ray beam path marked with a yellow dashed arrow. Components as labelled: (A) High-magnification viewing system, (B) X-ray scatter-guard, (C) levitating drop, (D) beamstop (out of position), (E) TinyLev Transducer array, (F) backlight (retracted during data collection), (G) sample positioning stage. Right: Model of the acoustic levitation system (E) used in this work annotated with key dimensions and showing the focal point of the transducer array.