Designed to achieve resolutions on the order of 1 nanometer, the Sapoti station of the Carnaúba beamline combines cryogenics, ultra-high vacuum, and cutting-edge mechatronics engineering to reveal structures at the atomic scale
Sapoti (Scanning Analysis by PtychO for Tomographic Imaging) is one of the two experimental stations of the Carnaúba beamline at Sirius. The facility is one of the most sophisticated and challenging stations ever developed at the Brazilian accelerator. Its goal is to achieve resolutions on the order of 1 nanometer in coherent X-ray imaging and tomography, a performance that places it among the world’s most precise instruments in synchrotron light-based microscopy.
The experimental stations of the Carnaúba beamline
The Carnaúba beamline operates in the 2.05 to 15 keV energy range, and was designed to perform simultaneous measurements with multiple X-ray analytical techniques, including diffraction, spectroscopy, fluorescence, and luminescence, as well as two- and three-dimensional imaging. It is the longest line at Sirius and uses a highly bright beam from an undulator, exploring the full potential for coherence and intensity that a fourth-generation synchrotron light source can provide.
Its infrastructure houses two complementary experimental stations. The Tarumã station was designed for in situ, in vivo (with plants), and cryogenic experiments, operating in an open environment with high flexibility for different types of samples. Sapoti operates in ultra-high vacuum and cryogenic conditions, which ensures even greater thermal and mechanical stability, leading to better spatial resolutions, as well as better conditions for experiments at the lower energy limit.
Read more on the Sirius website
Image: Part of the Carnaúba beamline’s infrastructure at Sirius. The beamline features two experimental stations located 136 and 142 m from the X-ray source, a vertically polarized undulator
Credit: Sirius