ESRF: A Quest for Excellence in Service to Users

The ESRF, the European Synchrotron, is the world's most intense X-ray source and a center of excellence for fundamental and innovation-driven research in condensed and living matter science. Located in Grenoble, France, the ESRF owes its success to the international cooperation of 21 partner nations, of which 13 are Members and 8 are Scientific Associates. It took its first electron beam and users in 1992 and has been in full operation for scientific users from Europe and all over the world since 1994.     

Facility Updates: Fermi @ Elettra: A Free Electron Laser for EUV and Soft X-ray Radiation

The importance of industrial use of national and international infrastructure projects such as Diamond Light Source is well understood, with the facilities ever mindful of the impact agenda of their funding agencies and governments. Diamond opened its doors for academic users in January 2007, with industrial users following a year later. Since that time, more than 40 companies have used Diamond's beamlines and support laboratories through the proprietary access mode, i.e. paying for their usage. In addition, many more have collaborated with university partners and used facilities through the peer review route.     

SSRL users meeting/SPEARfest

It's not exactly Russian roulette, but scheduling October events outdoors is not risk-free, even in usually sunny California. An overflow crowd or more than 400 registered users, ALS staff, and vendors enjoyed a full indoor program featuring science highlights and work-shops spread over two and a half days from October 18 to October 20, 2004. However, a major storm, heralding the onset of the San Francisco Bay Area rainy season, posed a few weather challenges for the events on the ALS patio.

Users' Executive Committee chair Dennis Lindle (University of Nevada, Las Vegas) started the meeting off with a warm welcome to new Berkeley Lab Director Stephen Chu. Coming from a laser-based science background, Chu confessed he was not yet intimately familiar with the ALS but was already hearing that it is one of the best facilities for users to do great science.     

中国先进研究堆中子科学平台发展现状及展望

依托中国先进研究堆(CARR)高通量中子源，建成了初具规模的中子科学平台，具备中子散射、中子成像和中子活化分析等多种研究技术。其中，中子散射技术包括中子衍射、小角中子散射及中子反射、非弹性中子散射，可以用于分析材料微观结构和动力学性质；热中子成像和冷中子成像可以用于材料内部缺陷等无损检测；中子活化分析系统可以用于物质内核素成分分析。目前已建成和在建中子谱仪共计19台，并初步配备了样品环境装置，为相关应用研究提供了条件基础，可为我国物理、化学、材料科学、生命科学、能源和环境等领域基础研究及工业应用提供重要技术支撑。CARR中子科学平台始终坚持合作共享对外开放的宗旨，将继续为国内外用户提供优质中子技术，服务基础科学前沿和国家重大创新需求研究。     

Mini‐beam collimator enables microcrystallography experiments on standard beamlines

The high‐brilliance X‐ray beams from undulator sources at third‐generation synchrotron facilities are excellent tools for solving crystal structures of important and challenging biological macromolecules and complexes. However, many of the most important structural targets yield crystals that are too small or too inhomogeneous for a `standard' beam from an undulator source, ～25–50 µm (FWHM) in the vertical and 50–100 µm in the horizontal direction. Although many synchrotron facilities have microfocus beamlines for other applications, this capability for macromolecular crystallography was pioneered at ID‐13 of the ESRF. The National Institute of General Medical Sciences and National Cancer Institute Collaborative Access Team (GM/CA‐CAT) dual canted undulator beamlines at the APS deliver high‐intensity focused beams with a minimum focal size of 20 µm × 65 µm at the sample position. To meet growing user demand for beams to study samples of 10 µm or less, a `mini‐beam' apparatus was developed that conditions the focused beam to either 5 µm or 10 µm (FWHM) diameter with high intensity. The mini‐beam has a symmetric Gaussian shape in both the horizontal and vertical directions, and reduces the vertical divergence of the focused beam by 25%. Significant reduction in background was achieved by implementation of both forward‐ and back‐scatter guards. A unique triple‐collimator apparatus, which has been in routine use on both undulator beamlines since February 2008, allows users to rapidly interchange the focused beam and conditioned mini‐beams of two sizes with a single mouse click. The device and the beam are stable over many hours of routine operation. The rapid‐exchange capability has greatly facilitated sample screening and resulted in several structures that could not have been obtained with the larger focused beam.     

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Medical application of synchrotron radiation (SR) is a fast-growing field of research. Since the advent of the angiography studies at SSRL first and then at NSLS in the U.S. in the 1990s, preclinical and clinical research protocols have been developed at Hasylab (Germany), Photon Factory (Japan), ELETTRA (Italia) and at the ESRF (France). Despite the fact that there are only a few dedicated beamlines in the world (two new ones are under construction at the Australian and Canadian synchrotrons), medical research is carried out in almost all synchrotron facilities.     

Radiometry with synchrotron radiation at the PTB laboratory at Bessy ii

A workshop on Engineering Applications of Neutrons and Synchrotron Radiation took place on September 13–14, 2004, at the ESRF in Grenoble, France. The workshop brought together around 100 leading scientists and engineers who discussed the application of synchrotron X-ray and neutron central facilities for engineering problems. The event was organized by the FaME38 materials engineering facility at ILL-ESRF. FaME38 is jointly funded by the UK research council EPSRC and ILL-ESRF and provides support to enable materials engineers to make the best use of the advanced synchrotron X-ray and neutron scientific facilities at ILL-ESRF.

The programme included formal presentations, a poster session, informal workgroup sessions and an opportunity to meet staff at the ILL-ESRF materials science beamlines. The formal presentations were structured into three sessions entitled Progress, Complementarity, and Applications chaired by Giovanni Bruno (ILL), Thomas Buslaps (ESRF), and Darren Hughes (FaME38).     

ID29: a high‐intensity highly automated ESRF beamline for macromolecular crystallography experiments exploiting anomalous scattering

ID29 is an ESRF undulator beamline with a routinely accessible energy range of between 20.0 keV and 6.0 keV (λ = 0.62 Å to 2.07 Å) dedicated to the use of anomalous dispersion techniques in macromolecular crystallography. Since the beamline was first commissioned in 2001, ID29 has, in order to provide an improved service to both its academic and proprietary users, been the subject of almost continuous upgrade and refurbishment. It is now also the home to the ESRF Cryobench facility, ID29S. Here, the current status of the beamline is described and plans for its future are briefly outlined.     

Data Analysis: Keeping Pace with Extraordinary Change

It is a very exciting time in the field of macromolecular crystallography for those of us who are fortunate enough to be involved in the development of instrumentation and software methods. The driver for much of this change has been the remarkable developments in synchrotron light sources and beamline instrumentation over the last two decades. In the 1990s, the ESRF, APS, and SPring-8 set the tone for many of these developments and the 2000s capitalized on them by seeding a host of medium-energy national light sources around the world.     

The Industrial Research Program at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility: The Past,the Present,and Challenges for the Future

The challenge of harnessing the power of third-generation synchrotron sources for industrial R&D has been taken up by the ESRF ever since the first users arrived in 1994. However, working with industry has its own special requirements, and often mismatches and clashes between a traditional scientific “ivory tower” culture and the needs of the market-driven commercial world. After more than 15 years of industrial research at the ESRF, during which strong industrial programs in protein crystallography and microtomography have been established, we continue to build bridges between the two worlds.     

Applications of X-ray synchrotron microtomography for non-destructive 3D studies of paleontological specimens

Paleontologists are quite recent newcomers among the users of X-ray synchrotron imaging techniques at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF). Studies of the external morphological characteristics of a fossil organism are not sufficient to extract all the information for a paleontological study. Nowadays observations of internal structures become increasingly important, but these observations should be non-destructive in order to preserve the important specimens. Conventional microtomography allows performing part of these investigations. Nevertheless, the best microtomographic images are obtained using third-generation synchrotrons producing hard X-rays, such as the ESRF. Firstly, monochromatisation avoids beam hardening that is frequently strong for paleontological samples. Secondly, the high beam intensity available at synchrotron radiation sources allows rapid data acquisition at very high spatial resolutions, resulting in precise mapping of the internal structures of the sample. Thirdly, high coherence leads to additional imaging possibilities: phase contrast radiography, phase contrast microtomography and holotomography. These methods greatly improve the image contrast and therefore allow studying fossils that cannot be investigated by conventional microtomography due to a high degree of mineralisation or low absorption contrast. Thanks to these different properties and imaging techniques, a synchrotron radiation source and the ESRF in particular appears as an almost ideal investigation tool for paleontology. PACS 01.30.Cc; 07.05.Hd; 68.37.Yz; 29.20.Lq; 81.70.Tx     

From Atoms to Aerosols: A Workshop on Opportunities for Chemical Physics at the ALS

Can the capabilities of the “big three” synchrotron radiation facilities still be “big” in the future? The three third-generation synchrotron radiation facilities — ESRF, APS, and SPring-8 — were inaugurated with performances significantly beyond that of smaller, lower-energy machines. For the past few years, though, mid-scale (～3 GeV) low-emittance machines, both operating and planned, have been gaining ground, in part taking advantage of the technological developments at the larger rings. The future competitiveness of the big three was one of the issues addressed during the ESRF/APS/SPring-8 Three-Way Meeting.     

Current progress and future developments in sychrotron radiation instrumentation for high-pressure research including the esrf programme

Abstract

The field of synchrotron radiation instrumentation and techniques for high-pressure research is reviewed. Current state-of-the-art, recent developments, main directions of progress and areas with the greatest need for further developments are discussed. Large volume devices, diamond-anvil cells, temperature variation, detectors, all diffraction techniques and dispersive x-ray absorption are covered. Theplanned ESRF high-pressure facilities and programme are presented.     

RixsToolBox: software for the analysis of soft X‐ray RIXS data acquired with 2D detectors

A software with a graphical user interface has been developed with the aim of facilitating the data analysis for users of a new resonant inelastic X‐ray scattering (RIXS) spectrometer installed at the ESRF beamline ID32. The software is organized in modules covering all relevant steps in the data reduction from a stack of several hundred two‐dimensional CCD images to a single RIXS spectrum. It utilizes both full charge integration and single‐photon centroiding to cope with high‐flux and high‐resolution requirements. Additional modules for further data analysis and the extraction of instrumental parameters are available. The software has been in routine use for about a year now and in that time many additional features have been incorporated. It now meets the users' need for an easy‐to‐use data analysis tool that allows looking at and understanding data as it is acquired and thus steering users' experiments more efficiently.     

12th annual advanced photon source users meeting and workshops

The advantages of synchrotron infrared radiation for micro-spectroscopy have already been demonstrated and exploited in most of the synchrotron facilities. The development of a similar instrument at the ESRF was driven by a twofold motivation.     

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The Seventh International Workshop on Infrared Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Accelerator-Based Sources (WIRMS 2013) was hosted by the Australian Synchrotron at the Mantra Resort in the coastal town of Lorne on the Great Ocean Road west of Melbourne, Australia, from November 10 to 14, 2013. In common with previous WIRMS meetings, the conference saw a coming together of staff and users from the world's synchrotron and free electron laser facilities, several of which were represented at the meeting for the first time. Scientific highlights of WIRMS 2013 included reports on FTIR spectro-microtomography, near-field infrared imaging, and cultural heritage applications.     

2011 U.S. National School on Neutron and X-ray Scattering

The 13^th annual U.S. National School on Neutron and X-ray Scattering was held June 11-25, 2011, at both Oak Ridge and Argonne National Laboratories. This school brought together 65 early career graduate students from 56 different universities in the United States and provided them with a broad introduction to the properties and techniques available at the major large-scale neutron and synchrotron X-ray facilities. This school is focused primarily on techniques relevant to the physical sciences, but also touches on cross-disciplinary bio-related scattering measurements. During the school, the students received lectures by more than 30 researchers from academia, industry, and national laboratories and participated in a number of short demonstration experiments at Argonne's Advanced Photon Source (APS) and Oak Ridge's Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) and High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) facilities to get hands-on experience in using neutron and synchrotron sources.     

Correspondent's Report: The Intense Pulsed Neutron Source at Argonne National Laboratory

The Intense Pulsed Neutron Source (IPNS) arose from first-of-a-kind, instrumented prototypes ZING-P and ZING-P' at Argonne National Laboratory in the mid-1970s. Starting from those beginnings with 200-MeV protons, fractional-microampere currents, and a lead-brick target, Argonne's pulsed-source developments have evolved continuously through innovations of accelerator technology, targets, reflectors, moderators, and instruments. Commissioned in 1981, IPNS now serves as one of the most effective U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national user facilities.     

NSLS 2001 annual users' meeting workshops: Frontiers in structural biology at high-brightness X-ray sources

The Canadian Light Source (CLS) has made several significant strides since our official opening in October 2004. These have included the completion of the first seven beamlines, the arrival of users and their first scientific publications using CLS data, the commencement of design and initial construction of our second flight of seven beamlines, and proposals for up to another five experimental facilities. Canada's synchrotron has met or exceeded its performance targets projected for the first two years of operations and is poised to continue to make substantial progress as it grows into a mature, user-oriented facility.     

Reflective Optics for Hard X-ray Nanofocusing Applications at the ESRF

The advent of high-brightness X-ray light sources has provided the impetus for the development of focusing systems capable of yielding spatially resolved information from samples at length scales below 10 nm. Beams of such dimensions are fundamental elements in a range of instruments providing powerful analytical tools for a broad range of scientific domains including life, materials, chemical, environmental, and physical sciences. At the ESRF, particular efforts have been made towards the design and implementation of reflective optical systems capable of routine nanoprobe formation at hard X-ray wavelengths (0.1 nm and below) with resolutions in the sub-50 nm range. Often, one of the principal driving forces for the use of such systems is the capacity of reflective optics to deliver very high photon fluxes to the sample. For imaging applications at the ESRF, monochromatic photon fluxes in excess of 10⁸ph/s/nm² are achievable at energies above 15keV—typically 1–2 orders of magnitude greater than accessible with current alternative technologies. Of course, such performance is not straightforward to achieve and requires considerable care both in the manufacture and implementation of the mirror systems. In this article, we describe some of the technological characteristics and limits of these optics and report on the performance of some of the systems currently in service at ESRF beamlines.