Phase III Overview

I05 is a facility dedicated to the study of electronic structures by ARPES. This technique is applied to materials with exotic electronic ground states such as unconventional superconductors, solids exhibiting charge and spin density waves, excitonic insulators and non-Fermi liquids. Operational since 2014, the high-resolution branch has contributed to a number of research areas, including the discovery of Weyl semimetal behaviour in tantalum arsenide (TaAs), and studies of iron-based superconductors, such as iron selenide (FeSe). The Nano-ARPES branch is also now operational, enabling investigators to understand not only the electronic structure on a macroscopic scale, but also to establish the real space distribution of those states with sub-micrometre resolution.

SAXS is used to study particles in solution on B21. SAXS provides a resolution-limited, structural snapshot of the sample and can be used to study slow processes, such as fibre formation. B21 underwent a major rebuild of its experimental hutch, installing the 'module 8' camera. In the new, windowless design the X-rays are no longer impeded by window materials and the beamstop is now positioned within a couple of millimetres of the detector face. In addition, the new detector provides pixels that are ~half the size of the old detector, nearly doubling the information in a SAXS measurement. The plan for B21 in 2019 is to pursue a new mirror mechanism to improve the focus, provide a high band-pass, ‘pink beam’ and an entirely windowless path for the X-ray beam from monochromator to sample.

I08 is used for morphological, elemental and chemical speciation on a broad range of organic-inorganic interactions in a 250 - 4400 eV photon energy range and sample investigations under ambient or cryogenic conditions, which is unique for an SXM facility. The main activity on I08 over the past year has been designing, constructing and testing various aspects of a new soft X-ray spectro- and tomo-ptychography branchline (J08). This new branchline is expected to be available for experiments in early 2020 and will provide spatial resolutions down to a few nm, providing a step change in imaging performance.

B24 is a full field transmission microscope designed specifically to meet the rising demand for tomographic imaging of biological specimens under near physiological conditions. The technique bridges the resolution gap that exists between electron microscopy (EM) and conventional light microscopy and allows acquisition of tomographic data from both native and fluorescent-labelled samples. A full user programme was delivered from April 2018 at B24 and the interest from user groups continues to grow steadily. The X-ray microscope has benefitted from the incorporation and full commissioning of a 25 nm zone plate, which is currently available to users. The integration of a bespoke cryo fluorescence super resolution module is also in high demand and has been developed to offer both cryoStructured Illumination microscopy (cryoSIM) and dSTORM allowing data collection beyond the diffraction limit.

I23 is a unique facility dedicated to directly solving the crystallographic phase problem from native proteins. It is the first macromolecular crystallography (MX) beamline internationally optimised for the long-wavelength region. I23 can access the absorption edges of calcium, potassium and chlorine allowing unambiguous identification of the nature of these atoms even at low resolution. Over the next few years, we will be able to give further insight into binding of these important elements in biology, information which remains elusive in cryo-EM. In the coming months, significant improvements to the beamline will be made to facilitate user mode and, to optimise best use of time on I23, adaptors for the I23 sample holders have been developed that enable fast sample screening on beamline I03.

The XPDF beamline is dedicated to producing high quality X-ray scattering data for Pair Distribution Function (PDF) analysis. Operational since 2017, I15-1 has illuminated samples from diverse fields, from Earth sciences to pharmaceuticals, as well as material science and chemistry. Ultimately, it provides data collection and analysis software to allow non-expert users to study the local structure of crystalline, amorphous solids, and liquids. In spring 2020, a sample-changing robot and an upgraded detector will be installed on the beamline. This upgrade will be a synergistic addition to the existing auto-processing infrastructure, and will allow users to collect better data with less manual intervention.

VMXi is the first beamline of its kind solely dedicated to data collection directly from crystallisation experiments in situ. The beamline has the facility to store thousands of user crystallisation experiments and features an automated transfer between sample storage and the beamline, as well as highly automated data collection and analysis. Through 2018, significant upgrades have been made that enable VMXi to progress to a full user programme, with the beamline being the test bed for the first 2nd generation Eiger2 X detector (4M), which is capable of collecting data at very fast rates with extremely high count rates. A new sample viewing system, and improved alignment configuration, now enable accurate automatic collection of data sets from many 10s, if not 100s of crystals per hour. Early experiments with serial crystallography delivery methods have been trialled and will add a further strength to the beamline capabilities in the coming years.

VERSOX gives users the ability to carry out studies of catalysts under gas-phase reaction conditions or investigations in atmospheric science and biology with samples under native conditions such as liquid environments. The beamline is in the process of installing a second branch, to enable high-throughput X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) measurements on multiple samples, and Near-edge Extended X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy in ambient-pressure environments up to several bar. Together with the Near 2020Ambient Pressure XPS/NEXAFS capabilities of the existing branch, the beamline will cover a wide range of non-vacuum sample environments for soft X-ray experiments. It thus provides excellent opportunities to study the electronic and structural properties of materials relevant to science areas, such as atmospheric chemistry, pharmaceuticals, catalysis, or cultural heritage, etc. Future development plans include expanding the sample environment capabilities to enable studies of solid-liquid interfaces and liquid surfaces.

At over 185 m long I14 is a scanning probe beamline that uses X-ray fluorescence and diffraction techniques to determine the structure and composition of a wide range of materials. It offers a small beam of 60 – 200 nm for high resolution imaging, which allows for the possibility of studying micron scale samples, such as biological cells, in greater detail and also allows users to study the role of nanoparticles in a range of areas such as catalysis and the environment. I14 has entered its second year of operation and has developed and expanded its capabilities in X-ray fluorescence, diffraction and X-ray Absorption Near Edge Strucure (XANES) mapping. The integration of the Excalibur detector on I14 now enables diffraction data to be acquired at sampling times down to 10 ms. For XANES mapping there have been a number of developments in automated drift correction to improve data quality. The beamline is still in its optimisation phase and new techniques and facilities such as ptychography are in development, and an increasing emphasis on in situ studies is driving a number of developments in this area.

I21 is a dedicated Resonant Inelastic Soft X-ray Scattering (RIXS) facility that produces highly monochromatised, focused and tunable (250 - 3000 eV) X-ray beams. It is suited to investigate the electronic, magnetic and lattice dynamics of samples, particularly those with magnetic and electronic interactions. I21 accepted first users in October 2017 and has been operating in optimisation mode with ~50% of available beamtime allocated to the user programme. Towards the end of 2018, the beamline spectrometer was transformed from a discrete-port setup to a continuous-rotation configuration allowing, amongst other things, studies of emergent phenomena throughout the Brillouin zone.

VMXm performs atomic structure determination for studies where large crystals are difficult to produce or suffer from weak diffraction. This is a common challenge for protein complexes and other flexible biological macromolecules. The smallest X-ray beam size measured to date on VMXm is currently 0.4 x 1.2 μm, and uniquely combines scanning electron microscopy with X-ray diffraction, to allow the smallest protein crystals to be aligned into the X-ray beam and small wedges of rotation data to be recorded. First user experiments were carried out on VMXm in October 2018. Further commissioning and optimisation will take place throughout 2019. 

DIAD is based on an innovative X-ray optical concept to allow the study of in situ processes with both imaging and diffraction simultaneously, enabling the user to take measurements of a live process as it evolves. The beamline has completed construction of the Optics Hutch and took first light in December 2018. Next to a standard tomography setup, a mechanical test-rig for diffraction and tomography will be one of the main instruments to allow in situ experiments for a variety of scientific disciplines such as engineering and materials science, bio-materials and hard tissues, geology and mineralogy, and soil plant interactions. The commissioning activities and construction of the experimental end station are ongoing with first users expected in early-mid 2020.