technique development – Lightsources.org

Cryo-electron microscopy for industry coming soon to SOLARIS

2020/02/252020/03/06

The SOLARIS Centre and the Malopolska Centre of Biotechnology (Jagiellonian University) won a two-stage competition for the purchase of an electron microscopy for industrial research.

Funding was awarded by the National Information Processing Institute (OPI PIB) as part of the EU’s Smart Growth Operational Programme.

“We have been trying to purchase a microscope because Polish companies keep asking us about the possibility to carry out measurements using the Cryo-EM technique” – says Michał Młynarczyk, Finance and Administration Deputy Director at SOLARIS. “We expect that the total time allocated for the commercial study will be at least 40% of operational time. The remaining time will be available for academic researchers” – continues the director.

“We are keen to enable Polish companies to access this exciting new technology, which is developing very fast and is currently becoming the most important one used in structural biology. The achievable results facilitate to understand the cellular mechanisms behind human diseases, the design of new drugs, the optimization of existing drug molecules. The technique is also successfully applied in nanotechnology and other fields” – adds Sebastian Glatt, Max Planck Research Group leader at the Malopolska Centre of Biotechnology – the main partner of SOLARIS in the implementation of this project.

>Read more on the SOLARIS website

Advanced Photon Source upgrade

2019/07/302019/07/31

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science (SC) has given DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory approval in the next phase of the $815M upgrade of the Advanced Photon Source (APS), a premier national research facility that equips scientists for discoveries that impact our technologies, economy, and national security.
DOE’s Critical Decision 3 (CD-3) milestone approval is a significant recognition of DOE’s acceptance of Argonne’s final design report for the complex APS Upgrade (APS-U), and authorizes the laboratory to proceed with procurements needed to build the nation’s brightest energy, storage-ring based X-ray source. The upgrade positions the APS to be a global leader among the new generation of storage-ring light sources that is now emerging.
Argonne’s APS, which works like a giant X-ray microscope, is a DOE Office of Science User Facility supported by the Scientific User Facilities Division of the Basic Energy Sciences Program in the Office of Science. It produces extremely bright, focused X-rays that peer through dense materials and illuminate the structure and chemistry of matter at the molecular and atomic level. By way of comparison, the X-rays produced at today’s APS are up to one billion times brighter than the X-rays produced in a typical dentist office.

A novel synchrotron technique for studying diffusion in solids

2019/05/232019/05/27

Bragg coherent diffraction imaging (BCDI) offers insights for nanoparticle synthesis

Understanding and controlling how the diffusion process works at the atomic scale is an important question in the synthesis of materials. For nanoparticles, the stability, size, structure, composition, and atomic ordering are all dependent on position inside the particle, and diffusion both affects all of these properties and is affected by them. A more thorough understanding of the mechanisms and effects of diffusion in nanocrystals will help to develop controlled synthesis methods to obtain the particular properties; however, conventional methods for studying diffusion in solids all have limitations.

Given the need for imaging techniques that are sensitive to slower dynamics and allow the diffusion behaviour in individual nanocrystals to be investigated at the atomic scale and in three dimensions (3D), a team of researchers used the strain sensitivity of Bragg coherent diffraction imaging (BCDI) to study the diffusion of iron into individual gold nanocrystals in situ at elevated temperatures. Their work was recently published in the New Journal of Physics.

Image, third of three figures: Reconstructed amplitude and phase images near the centre of the nanocrystals before and after iron deposition (1 pixel = 16.28 nm). The direction of the Q-vector, which is along the (11-1) direction, is shown by the arrow in the control phase images. See all here.
DOI:10.1088/1367-2630/aaebc1

ESRF installs first components of new Extremely Brilliant Source

2019/03/182019/03/18

The ESRF’s new Extremely Brilliant Source (EBS) is officially entering a new stage.

This week, the first components for the EBS – the world’s first, high-energy fourth-generation synchrotron light source – have been installed in its storage ring tunnel: a new milestone in the history of the European Synchrotron.
The first Extremely Brilliant Source girders have been installed in the ESRF’s storage ring tunnel. “It’s a great moment for all the teams,” said Pantaleo Raimondi, ESRF accelerator & source director. “Seeing the first girders installed on time is testament to the expertise, hard work and commitment of all involved for more than four years. EBS represents a great leap forward in progress and innovation for the new generation of synchrotrons.”

The start of installation is a key milestone in the facility’s 150M€ pioneering upgrade programme to replace its third-generation source with a revolutionary and award-winning machine that will boost the performance of its generated X-ray beams by 100, giving scientists new research opportunities in fields such as health, energy, the environment, industry and nanotechnologies. The EBS lattice has already been adopted by other synchrotrons around the world, and 18 upgrades following EBS’s example are planned, including in the United States, in Japan and in China.

Image: The first 12-tonne EBS girder is lowered into the storage ring tunnel.

Conclusion of the construction project: CHESS-U.

2019/01/182019/01/24

Fourteen months ago, Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul came to the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS) to announce a $15 million grant from the New York State Upstate Revitalization Initiative.

The URI funding was for an upgrade project – dubbed “CHESS-U” – which would arm CHESS with enhanced X-ray capabilities, keeping it a leading synchrotron source in the U.S. The project was also expected to create dozens of jobs, both at Cornell and across the region.
On Jan. 17, Hochul returned to Wilson Laboratory, the home of CHESS, to proclaim the project complete in an event that drew local lawmakers, stakeholders from Cornell, and representatives from several local and regional manufacturers whose contributions were on display during a short tour of the new experiment hutches and other equipment.
There is still some work to be done related to the project, and the linear accelerator and synchrotron beams – which were turned off for CHESS-U on June 4, 2018 – aren’t scheduled to be turned back on until Jan. 23. The event marked the official end of the construction project, for which crews worked double shifts over the final six months of 2018 in order to minimize downtime. In addition, wall and ceiling segments for most of the new experiment hutches were built off-sight at Advanced Design Consulting of Lansing and shipped to CHESS for installation. Beamlines will gradually be recommissioned in the coming months.

>Read more on the CHESS website

Image: CHESS Director Joel Brock, left, takes Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul on a tour of the new construction at the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source during an event Jan. 17 to mark the conclusion of the $15 million upgrade project, known as CHESS-U.
Credit: Jason Koski/Cornell Brand Communications

Tomography beamline at SESAME is officially launched

2019/01/092019/01/17

On 1st January 2019, the European Horizon 2020 project BEAmline for Tomography at SESAME (BEATS) was launched with the objective to design, procure, construct and commission a beamline for hard X-ray full-field tomography at the SESAME synchrotron in Jordan.

The European grant is worth 6 million euros and will span a four-year period from beginning 2019 to end 2022.
Led by the ESRF, the European synchrotron (France), BEATS involves leading research facilities in the Middle East (SESAME and the Cyprus Institute), and European synchrotron radiation facilities ALBA-CELLS (Spain), DESY (Germany), the ESRF (France), Elettra (Italy), INFN (Italy), PSI (Switzerland), SESAME (Jordan) and SOLARIS (Poland). The initiative is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

Nine partner institutes will join forces to lay the groundwork for the efficient and sustainable operation of the SESAME research infrastructure. Through the development and consolidation of the scientific case for a beamline for tomography, and actions to fortify the scientific community, the partners will pay particular attention to the R&D and technology needs of the SESAME Members. Built upon the OPEN SESAME project, BEATS will address the issue of sustainability of operation by preparing medium- to long-term funding scenarios for the tomography beamline and the facility.

Beam us up

2019/01/032019/01/17

The upgrade of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory will make it between 100 and 1,000 times brighter than it is today.

That factor is such a big change, it’s going to revolutionize the types of science that we can do,” said Stephen Streiffer, Argonne Associate Laboratory Director for Photon Sciences and Director of the APS. “We’ll be able to look at the structure of materials and chemical systems in the interior of things — inside a turbine blade or a catalytic reactor — almost down to the atomic scale. We haven’t been able to do that before. Given that vast change, we can only dream about the science we’re going to do.”
In December, DOE approved the technical scope, cost estimate and plan of work for an upgrade of APS.
The APS upgrade has been in the works since 2010. The upgrade will reveal a new machine that will allow its 5,500 annual users from university, industrial, and government laboratories to work at a higher spatial resolution, or to work faster with a brighter beam (a beam with more X-rays focused on a smaller spot) than they can now.

Image: A closeup of the magnets that will drive the upgraded APS beams.

Spectacular transport: Undulator moved to the electron storage ring BESSY II

2018/09/212018/09/27

A worldwide unique undulator developed at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) was installed in the storage ring BESSY II on September 20, 2018.

It supplies the “Energy Materials In-Situ Lab EMIL” with the hard X-ray light from BESSY II. The transport of the six-ton device was spectacular: several cranes were used to transport the undulator just a few hundred meters from the production building to the storage ring.

Undulators are key components to operate electron storage rings. The electrons pass through complex magnetic structures and are forced into an undulating orbit. This generates synchrotron radiation of great brilliance. What is special about the new undulator is that the magnetic structures are located in a vacuum chamber and cooled with liquid nitrogen. This permits significantly stronger magnetic fields to be generated to deflect the electrons.

Image: Arrival in the experimental hall. The undulator was lifted into the storage ring with the overhead crane.
Credit: HZB/S. Zerbe

Thailand is planning to build its ‘second’ Synchrotron Light Source

2018/08/312018/08/31

Synchrotron light source is the national infrastructure in science and technology for its contribution of research analysis from downstream, midstream, to upstream levels. Being an effective tool for advanced research, synchrotron promotes research targeting industrial applications for product development and innovation.

Thailand’s synchrotron radiation facility, the 2nd generation synchrotron light source, generates electron beam energy at 1.2 GeV covering spectral range from infrared to low-energy X-Rays. With such energy, the capacity of industrial and medical research is restricted due to the necessity of wider research techniques requiring higher energy and intensity of light. To produce high-energy X-Rays, Thailand should be compelled to develop the 4th generation of synchrotron light source with 2.5 times higher electron energy and 100,000 times higher intensity. This improvement aim to enhance research framework and facility service of Thailand to the leading position in medical, industrial, material, agricultural, food, and commercial research, including application and basic research, as well as becoming one of the top leaders in science and technology of Asia Pacific continent.

Image: Architectural model of Thailand’s future second Synchrotron Light Source

MAX IV becomes the first synchrotron to successfully trial neon venting from CERN

2018/07/202018/07/24

The vacuum chambers of MAXIV are only 22 mm of diameter; the chamber size was chosen in order to fit inside the compact magnets of the storage ring. Due to the small diameter of the chamber, the conventional way of pumping using lumped pumps is not efficient nor practical, accordingly, the vacuum system of the 3 GeV storage ring is fully NEG (non-evaporable getter) coated vacuum system.
NEG coating provides the needed pumping and reduces the outgassing due to the photons hitting the chamber walls. For NEG coating to be pumping down it should be activated, activation means that the coating should be heated up to around 200˚C, consequently, any venting to atmosphere will cause the NEG coating to be saturated (can not pump) and should be followed with NEG activation to restore the coating performance. At MAX IV, in order to activate the NEG coating, a major intervention is needed, where the whole achromat (23 m) should be lifted and heated up inside an oven. Such an intervention would last from 2 weeks (if the achromat does not have insertion devices) up to 4 weeks (for achromats with insertion devices).

Call for nominations: Innovation Award on Synchrotron Radiation 2018

2018/07/192018/07/23

The Society of Friends of Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) announces the bestowal of the Innovation Award on Synchrotron Radiation*.

The award was established in 2001 for an excellent achievement which has contributed significantly to the further development of techniques, methods or uses of synchrotron radiation. Scientists and engineers from research institutions, universities, and industry within Europe are addressed. The Innovation Award includes a monetary prize of 3000 Euro and will be bestowed at the Users’ Meeting of HZB (BESSY II) in December 2018.

All nominations should be submitted to the Chair of the Society by September 30, 2018. Suggestions of candidates have to be addressed electronically and must include a concise, verifiable description in English of the scientific-technological achievement. The curriculum vitae, the publication list of the candidate(s) and at five most relevant publications have to be submitted. Two references should be named.

Please address nominations to:

Prof. Dr. Mathias Richter
Chair of the Society of Friends of Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin
Head of Department Radiometry with Synchrotron Radiation, Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt
Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Technische Universität Berlin
Email: mathias.richter@ptb.de

*sponsored by SPECS GmbH and BESTEC GmbH, Berlin.

Picture: Bessy II at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin.

Young talent from LNLS awarded at international conference

2018/07/102018/07/11

Work on components for Sirius was elected best poster.

Gabriel Vinícius Claudiano, member of the Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory (LNLS), was awarded the prize for best poster in the category “young engineer under 30” during the tenth edition of the MEDSI (Mechanical Engineering Design of Synchrotron Radiation Equipment and Instrumentation) conference, which was held in Paris, France, between June 25th and 29th.

Gabriel’s work is related to the development of components for the beamlines of the new Brazilian synchrotron light source, Sirius. These components are located at the interface between the storage ring and the beamlines, which is called front-end, and their function is to absorb part of the synchrotron light beam to protect sensitive equipment.

>Read more on the LNLS website

Picture: Gabriel Vinícius Claudiano.

New approach to imaging single biological particles

2017/10/122018/01/17

As part of an international collaboration, scientists at European XFEL have developed and tested a novel approach for processing data from single biological particles such as proteins and viruses. Based on an idea first proposed over 40 years ago, the new method overcomes several problems of traditional approaches and could also have applications for other structural biology methods. The method is published today in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Pushing further towards higher brightness and coherence

2017/09/302018/01/16

The commissioning of the MAX IV synchrotron radiation facility in Lund marks the dawn of a new generation of storage-ring-based light sources. This new generation delivers one order of magnitude higher performance and allows realization of groundbreaking experiments on a variety of systems and materials at the atomic and molecular levels. This paper reviews the conceptual basis of the MAX IV design, briefly summarizes the most recent accelerator commissioning results and focusses on exploring a future development path for the MAX IV 3 GeV storage ring aimed at achieving the diffraction limit at hard x-ray wavelengths.