Tag: Free Electron laser

Groundbreaking instrument back online, marking a key milestone in high-energy upgrade to SLAC’s X-ray laser

Groundbreaking instrument back online, marking a key milestone in high-energy upgrade to SLAC’s X-ray laser

The X-ray Pump Probe instrument is returning to normal operations this spring and will see a major capability boost when the high-energy beam comes online near the end of 2027.

Key takeaways:

  • XPP, an instrument at SLAC’s X-ray laser that has enabled groundbreaking science, is returning to normal operations this spring after a year-long rebuild.
  • The overhaul is a key milestone for the ongoing high-energy upgrade to the Linac Coherent Light Source.
  • It will see a major capability boost when the high-energy beam comes online toward the end of 2027. 

XPP, the X-ray Pump Probe instrument at the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), is back online and welcoming researchers after a complete rebuild. The overhaul has readied XPP for the significant increase in X-ray output expected from the ongoing high-energy upgrade to LCLS at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. LCLS is a pioneering X-ray free-electron laser facility used by scientists around the world to capture ultrafast snapshots of natural processes.

“Completing the XPP rebuild on-time and on-budget is a key milestone for the high-energy upgrade effort, and we’re thrilled that the instrument is back to supporting researchers from around the world,” said John Hogan, project director for the LCLS high-energy upgrade. “This was a huge team effort, involving partners across SLAC’s engineering, science and project teams.” 

Since its 2010 debut, XPP has enabled groundbreaking research across materials science – from quantum information storage to material dynamics across timescales – as well as studies in chemistry, physics and bioscience. Researchers have leveraged XPP to pioneer X-ray optics technologies, including cavity-based X-ray oscillators that are shaping future X-ray free-electron laser facilities. 

The recent, year-long rebuild prepared XPP for the upcoming high-energy upgrade to LCLS, which began in 2025 and will take about two years to complete. After the upgrade, LCLS will produce high-energy X-rays at repetition rates up to a million pulses per second, enabling XPP to gather more data, achieve higher spatial resolution and support a wider range of experiments. 

“In 2010, XPP became the first instrument in the world to use hard X-rays from an X-ray free-electron laser,” said Takahiro Sato, XPP instrument lead. “It’s been an instrument we’ve used to develop new experimental tools and techniques and to showcase ultrafast science. With this upgrade, we’re enabling it to remain at the forefront of this field.” 

To ready XPP for the major increase in photons, higher energies and associated heat loads, teams stripped out the entire instrument, removing legacy components and rebuilding the instrument with new and refurbished parts. 

A key addition is a Large Offset Double Crystal Monochromator, which will be cryo-cooled using liquid nitrogen to approximately minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit to handle increased heat loads and minimize temperature fluctuations during experiments. 

The team also upgraded the multiplexing system, which can split the LCLS X-ray beam in two – directing one stream to XPP while sending another downstream to other instruments – so multiple experiments can run at once. The new multiplexing system replaces the old one and is more reliable and stable. 

Read more on the SLAC website

Image: Juan Perez (front) and Aaron Butcher (back) install a Large Offset Double Crystal Monochromator (LODCM) in LCLS’s XPP hutch, which filters the incoming X-ray beam to a precise energy before it reaches the experiment.

Credit: Olivier Bonin/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Blood pressure-lowering drug with a light switch

Blood pressure-lowering drug with a light switch

From off to on in fractions of a second – researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have investigated a light-switchable drug for high blood pressure: They observed how the molecule transforms from one form to another and how this affects its effectiveness in the body. This could aid in the development of medications whose effects can be precisely controlled, within the body, using light. The study has now been published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

Rendering a drug effective or ineffective in a flash at the appropriate location – this is the focus of research in photopharmacology. The goal is to develop drugs that can be switched on and off with light of a specific wavelength. Orally administered medications could then be selectively activated by irradiating only a specific part of the body with light; the medication would remain ineffective in the rest of the body – thus reducing side-effects. For example, a drug intended to lower blood pressure in the heart could then be activated only there; other organs with identical binding sites for the active ingredient would remain unaffected.

Researchers in the PSI Center for Life Sciences have now observed, at the molecular level, how a light-switchable drug interacts with its corresponding biological receptor. Most important, they have discovered why the drug changes its potency.

“Observing exactly what happens at such receptors when a drug is altered by light is an important step toward making light-switchable drugs a reality in the clinic,” says Jörg Standfuss, a laboratory head in the PSI Center for Life Sciences and co-author of the new study published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

Read more on the PSI website

Image: Jörg Standfuss (left) and Quentin Bertrand are two of the researchers in the PSI Center for Life Sciences who now have found out, on the molecular level, why a light-controllable drug changes its potency.

Credit: © Paul Scherrer Institute PSI/Markus Fischer

Filming a vitamin B12 photoreceptor in action

Filming a vitamin B12 photoreceptor in action

Using X-ray free-electron lasers and synchrotron light at facilities in Switzerland, Japan, France and the UK, a worldwide collaboration of scientists have discovered how a vitamin B12-based photoreceptor works. Understanding how photoreceptors function aids future technological applications, such as optogenetics, that involve controlling cellular processes with light. The findings are published in Nature.

Vitamin B12 is an organometallic cofactor found in many enzymes that control essential processes in various organisms, including humans. It came as a surprise a decade ago that vitamin B12 derivatives had been repurposed for light sensing by a large family of previously unknown photoreceptors in bacteria that fulfil various functions. 

The prototypical B12 photoreceptor CarH, for example, regulates the expression of genes involved in protecting bacteria against excess sunlight. It achieves this by binding to DNA in the dark, acting as a molecular doorstop. Upon illumination, its tetrameric architecture breaks apart, enabling transcription by unbinding from DNA. 

The way in which this and other B12 photoreceptors function at a molecular level has remained a mystery ever since. However, an international consortium led by scientists at the Institut de Biologie Structurale in Grenoble, France has now combined experimental techniques using X-ray free-electron lasers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI in Switzerland (SwissFEL) and Japan (SACLA), as well as the synchrotrons in France (ESRF) and the UK (Diamond Light Source), with quantum-chemical calculations to uncover the inner workings of CarH.

Read more on the PSI website

Image: John Beale is responsible for macromolecular crystallography at the Cristallina experimental station of SwissFEL

Credit: © Paul Scherrer Institute PSI / Markus Fische

Ready to join our celebrations? Mark your calendar for the 20th May – #LightSourceSelfiesDay2024

Ready to join our celebrations? Mark your calendar for the 20th May – #LightSourceSelfiesDay2024

Excitement is building at Lightsources.org HQ as we prepare to see your #LightSourceSelfiesDay posts on, or around, the 20th May 2024. Whatever your connection to light sources, we invite you to join us in celebrating all that has been achieved in the past 20 years and the exciting, world changing, science that is on the horizon in the future. Let’s light up social media with images from around our international community! #LightSourceSelfiesDay2024 #Happy20Lightsources

ESRF hosts Lightsources.org members’ meeting in Grenoble

ESRF hosts Lightsources.org members’ meeting in Grenoble

Science communicators from light source facilities within Lightsources.org, the global collaboration of 23 synchrotrons and 7 Free Electron Lasers, gathered at The European Synchrotron (ESRF) last week to share knowledge, ideas, and strategic plans. The in-person meeting, the first to be held in Europe since before the pandemic, also focussed on developing a special programme of activities to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Lightsources.org in 2024.

Guest speakers included Terry O’Connor, EMBL’s Head of communication, and Daniela Antonio, CERN’s Social media and community manager, both of whom shared insights into their strategies, activities and priorities in the ever changing landscape of 21st century science communication.

Delphine Chenevier, Head of communications at the ESRF, comments, “Since we last hosted a Lightsources.org collaboration meeting, the ESRF has undergone a major upgrade to a fourth-generation high-energy synchrotron. This has significantly increased our scientific capabilities. It was wonderful to be able to show colleagues several beamlines where ESRF staff outlined the research that can now be done across a range of fields including health, materials, environmental sciences, cultural heritage, and palaeontology.”

Isabelle Boscaro-Clarke, Diamond’s Head of Impact, Communication and Engagement, adds “One of the most valuable aspects of being a member of Lightsources.org is the connections you develop with colleagues in similar roles around the world. Our in-person meetings give us the opportunity to share both the triumphs and the challenges and provide the time needed to have in-depth discussions. These discussions help us to strengthen our communications programmes at an individual facility level and plan the future development of the Lightsources.org collaboration as it continues to provide one voice for the brightest science.”

Lightsources.org was established in 2004 and, as the 20th Anniversary approaches, the collaboration will be focusing on a new Vision and Strategic Plan for 2024-2044 along with a special programme of activities to raise the profile of Lightsources.org and its members throughout 2024.

If you are interested in becoming a member of Lightsources.org, please visit our About Lightsources.org page or contact Silvana Westbury, our Project Manager, at webmaster@lightsources.org  

To keep up to date with light source news, career opportunities, events, proposal deadlines and upgrade information from our member facilities, please subscribe to our weekly e-newsletter

    

Top Image: Lightsources.org members outside the ESRF, Tuesday 26th September 2023. Left to right: Agnieszka Cudek, SOLARIS, Poland, Ana Belén Martínez, ALBA, Spain, Laia Torres Aribau, ALBA, Spain, Beth Schlesinger, APS (Argonne), USA, Emma Corness, Diamond, UK, Miriam Arrell, SLS/SwissFEL (PSI) Switzerland, Silvana Westbury, Lightsources.org, Isabelle Boscaro-Clarke, Diamond, UK, Florentine Krawatzek, BESSY II (HZB), Germany, Wiebke Laasch, DESY Photon Science, Germany, Delphine Chenevier, ESRF, France

Credit: ESRF