Work experience week

Project goal: Build a dashboard to monitor the status of Hyperion, a service that automatically runs experiments at Diamond.

Project description: Hyperion is a software service that runs experiments without the need of human input. It orchestrates the movement of motors and robots and the collection of data from tiny protein crystals, which can run by itself for hours without any human intervention. This allows scientists to gain insight into these proteins which helps with the discovery of new medicine and vaccines.

Currently, Hyperion has no user interface, which can make it hard to understand exactly what is going on. In this project you will build a dashboard in React that will provide information on Hyperion, including whether it is running or not, and which sample is being experimented on. Further features of the dashboard could allow a user to start and stop Hyperion and provide more detailed information.

Project goal: Explore vacuum techniques at Diamond and develop an understanding of how Pirani gauges behave.

Project description: To maintain the electron beam in Diamond’s storage ring, the tube the electrons travel in must be at a low pressure. This is because an electron beam travelling quickly through air will lose electrons due to collisions with air molecules. Different gauges measure different pressure ranges in the ring, and their feedback is part of Diamond’s control system.

One of these gauges is the Pirani gauge, which works by looking at how gas molecules cool a hot filament. Changes in pressure depend on the gases in the system as they can have different specific heat capacities. Knowing this response is important in the safe running of Diamond.

Project goal: Learn Javascript, HTML and CSS and use these languages to build an interactive map of Diamond.

Project description: The web is becoming an increasingly powerful tool to provide engaging experiences for users and visitors. In this project, students will design, create and test an interactive webpage using HTML, CSS and JavaScript. The webpage will provide information on the different beamlines available at Diamond, including a map of where each beamline is located. Students will have the chance to make creative decisions on the design of the map. The students applying for the project should have an interest in programming languages such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript but full training will be provided during the placement week.

Project goal: Develop laboratory skills used in the XChem group through hands-on experience in automated chemistry, X-ray diffraction of crystals, and building of 3D protein structures.

Project description: At XChem, through automation, computational geekery and engineering, we believe in developing open and accessible tools to drive drug discovery. In this project, you will gain drug-discovery pipeline experience from XChem chemists, coding professionals and protein crystallographers. You will be exposed to different fields of expertise, from chemistry to crystallography, and you will develop a better understanding of how the different scientific fields work together to power discovery of new drugs that could prevent the next pandemic.

Project goal: Produce an educational video highlighting food research and the versatility of beamline I18 at Diamond.

Project description: Do you want to spend a week thinking about the science of chocolate? The Microfocus Beamline is a multifaceted instrument offering various measurements to satisfy a range of investigative needs. Through the years our beamline has developed a wide range of sample environments to accommodate the unique needs of every scientist; we have heaters, coolers, pumps, and stages that spin!  Food science is one of the many fields of research that uses a synchrotron. For this project, you will get the chance to become a food scientist, from preparing samples to using different sample environments, and potentially discover how many forms of chocolate our beamline can measure. You will document your experience in an educational video for our webpage. Head to our webpage to see what our students achieved last year.

Project goal: Design a particle accelerator that can focus the electron beam both horizontally and vertically.

Project description: Modern particle accelerators make use of a sequence of electromagnets to transport and focus the electron beam as it travels through the beampipe. We can simulate the focusing and defocusing properties of these magnets mathematically, allowing us to calculate what magnets we need, how strong they must be and how far apart they should be, so that the beam is successfully focused. In this project, you will design a simple particle accelerator which is the basis of the design at Diamond Light Source.

Project goal: Understand the function and design of a synchrotron component at Diamond and use CAD to create a 3D printed model of this.

Project description: The Diamond-II upgrade will allow Diamond Light Source to continue delivering world-changing science. This upgrade requires the delivery of a new machine and beamlines, alongside upgrades to individual components and the removal of Diamond-I components. To assist with the installation and removal planning of Diamond-II, a 1:100 scale model of the synchrotron is being developed and 3D printed, which you will contribute to.

Using Creo, you will simplify the design of a major Diamond-II component (e.g. an element from the booster ring, a beamline, or a straight section of the storage ring). To make this possible, you will learn how the component integrates with the rest of the synchrotron and which features are critical to making it recognisable. You will then use the appropriate 3D modelling techniques, such as CAD, to simplify and send to the in-house 3D printer.

Project goal: Learn how to design proteins using simple computational tools and understand the role of proteins in our body.

Project description: Proteins are essential molecules for life. How they are built or folded is essential to what they do in our bodies. But what happens if the same protein folds into a different shape? Does its function change? Scientists are trying to understand the relationship between those two factors, to enable them to go one step further. Can we design our own proteins to fight any disease? In this project you will explore the fundamentals of protein design and gain hands-on experience creating your own protein models using accessible computational tools.

Project goal: Learn about a modern engineering design process and apply this to a flexure motion system used at Diamond.

Project description: Voice-coil flexure actuators are key components in many modern cutting-edge motion systems. A flexure is a carefully designed spring-like mechanism. When this is combined with an electromagnetic actuator, which is an electrical coil and a permanent magnet, it is possible to achieve controlled linear motion at high speeds. They are deceptively complex mechatronic systems, drawing upon many important fields of engineering, from structural mechanics and dynamics, to controls and electromagnetism. Flexures are used across Diamond Light Source with one example being the Delta Robot. The Delta Robot is used at one of our beamlines to scan scientific samples in front of the synchrotron beam with speed and precision. Flexures have also been used for astronomy, check out this video explaining the flexure design used in the James Webb space telescope. 

During this project you will analyse a set of provided flexure designs and make an informed choice of the optimal design. Then, you will simulate their chosen design and test your 3D printed flexure.

Project goal: Create content and social media posts for the Diamond website and social media channels.

Project description: During this placement, you will learn about the role of the communications team and how we promote the organisation both internally and externally.

You will work on a project focused on capturing and sharing information about Diamond and what we do here. This will involve:

• interviewing scientists to learn about their work
• learning about website content management systems, social media scheduling platforms and design tools to make digital content
• writing engaging content and social posts based on this information
• developing skills in research, interviewing, and writing for different audiences

This project will give you hands-on experience in science communication and an opportunity to contribute to real content that celebrates the people behind world-class research.

Project goal:  Design, build and refine an electronic control system based on an Arduino microcontroller.

Project description: Diamond has a vast array of systems. From managing every aspect of the accelerators and beamlines to supporting systems to operate efficiently and safely. Whilst these tend to be large distributed systems, in this project you'll start with an introduction to using the Arduino microcontroller with a wide variety of inputs, outputs and user interfaces. Then your mission is to design, build and programme a control system around the Arduino for a specific goal from scratch - adding more capabilities as time permits! There will also be an opportunity to solder a small project of your choice to take away.

Project goal: Gain practical skills in protein handling and crystallisation.

Project description: This project will give you an insight into how scientists obtain proteins from cells to use for protein function and structure studies. You will have the opportunity to purify a protein and set up crystal trays, both by hand and using a liquid handling robot. Following this, you will have the opportunity to collect diffraction data from the crystals you have grown and see how this data is analysed to obtain a 3D structure of the protein.

Project goal: Learn how the legal team provide advice across Diamond and understand the relevant legal areas applicable for in-house law.

Project description: The legal team at Diamond monitors legal and regulatory developments in the UK and overseas in relation to Diamond's activities, as well as providing support and advice on a range of legal matters relating to Diamond.

You will have the opportunity to get involved in live matters the legal team are dealing with. This will encompass a range of commercial law issues and provide an overview of the range of work the legal team undertakes. The work undertaken could include requests for contracts, analysing any legal or regulatory risks and communicating with Diamond staff on matters.

Project goal: Understand the principles of electrolysis and sustainable hydrogen production through hands-on experimentation and data analysis. 

Project description: Hydrogen is expected to play an important role in the energy transition and in achieving climate goals. For example, if we want to drive hydrogen fuel-cell cars in the future, we will need to buy hydrogen (H₂) instead of petrol. Therefore, a reliable and sustainable source of hydrogen is essential. But where might this hydrogen come from?

This project will give you hands-on experience with one of the most sustainable ways to produce hydrogen - water electrolysis using nanocatalysts. In this process, an electrical current splits water (H₂O) into H₂ and oxygen (O₂). When powered by renewable energy electrolysis offers a truly green route to hydrogen. At Diamond's soft X-ray beamline, we study this process in real time to identify the fundamental challenges that make it expensive and inefficient.

Project goal: Understand undulator magnetic field correction principles and gain practical skills in measurement and tuning.

Project description: Insertion devices (undulators and wigglers) produce the very high intensity X-rays used by most beamlines at Diamond. The energy of the X-rays can be concentrated at a few frequencies by wiggling the electron beam. This is accomplished using periodic arrays of magnets called undulators which oscillate the electrons around their otherwise straight trajectory. It is important we get these oscillations right. This project covers the measurement and tuning of an undulator’s magnetic field to correct the electron oscillations. You will estimate and carry out the tuning needed on the magnets using a magnetic measurement bench, the insertion device control system, and specialist software, and confirm your results afterwards.

Project goal: Explore how much the data used during the training of machine learning algorithms affects its predictions.

Project description: Machine learning object detection algorithms form the basis of many autonomous systems including Tesla Autopilot and Goal-line technology. At the electron Bio-Imaging Centre (eBIC) we use these same object detection algorithms to identify hundreds of protein particles in each of the roughly 80,000 images we take daily using our cryo-electron microscopes. In this project you will get the opportunity to use several of these algorithms on images of different proteins and viruses. You will also examine how well the algorithms can locate particles by altering the parameters of the algorithms and using different the images.

Project goal: Explore the use of FPGAs at Diamond.

Project description: Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) are fast digital logic devices for high-speed control and computation. They are widely used in a variety of applications including telecoms, guidance systems, high performance computing, data centres, and even stock market trading. At Diamond we use FPGAs mainly to control and diagnose the electron beams in our particle accelerators, and in the acquisition of data from the beamline experiments. This project will introduce you to the basic concepts of FPGAs, and give some understanding of how they work, how to programme them, and why we use them.

Project goal: Analyse the activated material within the synchrotron using gamma ray spectroscopy.

Project description: The Diamond synchrotron accelerates electrons to 3 GeV. This energy is high enough to create ionising photons and neutrons within the accelerator. This radiation can be harmful to living organisms, and it is the purpose of the Health Physics team to ensure everyone working at Diamond is safe from this and all other sources and types of ionising radiation. In this project, you will perform a qualitative radioisotope assessment of the activated materials within the synchrotron using gamma ray spectroscopy. Your scientific analysis of the data will demonstrate the methodology, and physical understanding of the observed gamma rays. To do this safely you will learn and demonstrate the main principles of radiation protection.

Project goal: Gain practical experience in a chemistry laboratory and be introduced to molecular crystallography.

Project description: Are you curious about how new materials shape the future of technology? In this project you will gain hands-on experience using the gold-standard technique for revealing atomic structures - X-ray crystallography. You’ll grow your own crystals in a real chemistry lab and learn how to fine tune the experimental conditions to optimise your samples. Then, on our cutting-edge beamline I19, you’ll investigate your crystals in incredible detail using advanced serial X-ray crystallography. You’ll process the data, build 3D molecular models of your samples, and compare your findings to global databases to find out if you’ve discovered something entirely new. This interactive project is ideal for students who love science that’s visual, practical, and innovative.

Project goal: Investigate the corrosion effects on iron and copper using optical and scanning microscopy, and X-ray fluorescence at the I14 beamline.

Project description: In this project you will plan and carry out a lab experiment to investigate factors affecting the corrosion of iron and copper. The sample will be then analysed using a variety of techniques such as optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF). The aim of the experiment is to examine the phases formed as the samples are corroded under different environmental conditions. This project will give you hands-on experimentation experience as well as an insight into life as a scientist in a large-scale science facility.

Project goal: Understand how diffraction gratings shape X-ray beams and create a simple design concept for a beamline grating.

Project description: This project will give you an insight into how scientists design and select diffraction gratings for synchrotron beamlines to control X-ray beams for experiments. You will: learn the basics of grating parameters such as line density and coatings; explore real specifications from Diamond Light Source; and perform simple comparisons using provided data. At the end of the project, you will draft a mock specification, create a poster explaining your work, and understand the role of optics in advanced research.

Project goal: Use macromolecular crystals to understand basic aspects of X-ray diffraction and tomography. 

Project description: Diamond’s long-wavelength macromolecular crystallography beamline I23 uses X-ray diffraction to study 3D structures of molecules. To help improve the quality of diffraction data, X-ray tomography can be applied to image and reconstruct 3D models of macromolecular crystals. You will learn how to collect X-ray tomography images, process the data to produce models of the samples, and then label the different materials within the samples using advanced visualisation software.