Schools/College Work Experience

Come and join us for the synchrotron user experience and produce an educational video for our webpage at I18 – The Microfocus Beamline! We will guide you through a typical scientific journey which includes sample selection, measuring the specimen, and using the automatic data processing pipeline to develop striking scientific images. All the while, we will be filming content to illustrate how things work at our beamline. We would love to have you as the star of the video, or if you prefer you can take the lead as director and produce a scientific masterpiece. 

The web is becoming an increasingly powerful tool to provide engaging experiences for users. 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 instruments available at Diamond, including a map of where each instrument is located. 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.

At XChem, through automation, computation 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 early-stage chemistry to crystallography - working alongside XChem chemists, coders and crystallographers. You will be exposed to different fields of expertise, and you will develop a better understanding of how the different scientific fields work together to drive drug-discovery.

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 and data centres, and even stock market trading. At Diamond we use FPGAs mainly to control and diagnose the beams in our particle accelerators, and also in the acquisition of data from the beamline experiments. This project will introduce the student to the basic concepts of FPGAs, and give some understanding of how they work, how to program them, and why we use them. 

Learning and development helps our employees continually gain new skills, grow their knowledge, and increase their confidence which better equips them in the workplace now and in their future careers. The project will be to create some digital learning for a particular topic selected for (or by) you. We will show you how to use software to incorporate interesting and interactive elements including AI and animations that will bring your training to life. 

At Diamond we collect a lot of data and it is essential to analyse them in an efficient and optimised manner. In this project you will use the CUDA programming model by Nvidia for accelerated image analysis. You will perform operations such as noise reduction, feature detection and down sampling in GPU with real experimental data collected at our beamlines. 

We are in the process of upgrading our machine at Diamond. Within our new beamlines we will have what is known as a mask attached to multiple components near the beginning of a beamline. The masks absorb unwanted diverging x-rays, to prevent damage to uncooled components further downstream.

Students will be tasked with designing and simulating the cooling for a mask whilst it is being heated by the x-ray beam. This will involve considering both the geometric shape of their cooling design and the chosen material based on cost and performance for its chosen application. This will be completed using industry standard software both for 3D CAD and thermal simulation (Creo Parametric 8, Simulink).

Diamond’s detectors are essential in allowing our scientists to collect the data that they need for their experiments. It is crucial that these detectors are precisely calibrated so that the scientists can trust that their data is accurate. We have built a source of red light for the calibration of detectors operating at low energy range. The source can be set to different intensities of light. During this project the student will take measurements of the source with a calibrated photodiode to investigate the performance of the source. 

Almost all of the work done at Diamond has an element of electronic control; from the particle accelerator and experimental hutches to the safety systems and offices. So it is important that these electronic systems function correctly. The students will see an overview of how some of these systems function. They will then have an opportunity to develop hardware and software skills, while designing, building and testing their own small-scale electronic Control System. 

The electron accelerators used to create synchrotron radiation at Diamond emit neutron and x-ray radiation which can harm living organisms when used in an unsafe way. To keep the workplace safe, the Health Physics (HP) group provides a very vital role. A student working in the HP team will be involved in day to day tasks including; using radiation monitors, analysis of radiation monitoring data, environment monitoring techniques and a project to design a jig for checking the geometrical effect, linearity, sensitivity, consistency etc. of the radiation monitor.

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. The student 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, communicating with Diamond staff on matters and drafting contracts. 

Diamond Light Source is undergoing a huge upgrade allowing for brighter light and greater speed of analysis. Diamond-II is a project that will deliver a new machine and new beamlines with a comprehensive series of upgrades to optics, detectors, sample environments, sample delivery capabilities and computing. This massive feat of engineering would not be possible without our logistics team. In order to be ready for the upgrade, we need to have a complete inventory of current equipment.

Your role as our work-experience student will be to create an inventory of equipment from the facility, using a tracking software to categorize and record what you find. This will allow you to see the inner workings of Diamond up close as well as interact with a wide range of our staff from all departments. You will learn categorisation techniques, explore IT supply chain software packages and develop an understanding of inventory management. This project will give you an insight into the systems behind large facilities and the systematic processes required to keep them running.

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’s important we get these oscillations right. This project covers the measurement and tuning of an undulator’s magnetic field to correct the electron oscillations. Using an 8 meter long measurement bench, the insertion device control system, and specialist software you will estimate and carry out the tuning needed on the magnets, and confirm your results afterwards.

Understanding how atoms arrange themselves helps scientists understand the link between structure and functionality of materials such as superconductors and thermoelectrics. The I15-1 beamline is used to study the average and local structure of materials.

This project will give you hands-on experience of making samples through solid state synthesis, which will be measured on the beamline. Your experiments will help us understand how temperature affects the samples' structure. The results will be compared to models to help identify key distances between atoms and how these change during the experiment.

Mechanical Engineering at Diamond involves designing cutting edge machinery, mechanisms and instruments to enable world class science.

The student will have the chance to work on a small project during which they will use the same tools and processes that the Engineering Team employ. For example Microsoft Project to create project plans/Gantt charts, 3D CAD (Creo 4) to produce part models and drawings, Finite Element Analysis (Ansys 17) to evaluate concept designs and rapid prototyping using 3D printers.

The student will plan and carry out a lab experiment to investigate factors affecting the corrosion of iron. The sample will then be analysed using a variety of techniques including using a nanoprobe x-ray beamline to examine the phases formed as the iron samples are corroded. 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. 

This project will give an insight into how scientists go about the process of crystallising and solving the structure of a protein, including using a synchrotron beamline. Students will use liquid handling robots to set up crystallisation experiments, they will employ some detective work to analyse the output to identify optimal crystallisation conditions and will then collect X-ray diffraction data to solve the 3D structure of the protein that they have crystallised. 

Hydrogen is believed to play an important role in energy transition and achieving climate goals. For example, if we want to drive a hydrogen fuel cell car in the future, we'll need to buy hydrogen instead of petrol at the garage. Therefore, a source of hydrogen is necessary. Where might hydrogen come from?

This project provides hands-on experience with one of several methods for creating hydrogen using nanocatalysts. This process, known as electrolysis, involves breaking down the water molecule (H2O) into oxygen (O2) and hydrogen (H2) utilising a direct electrical current connected to the water by electrodes made of nanocatalysts. When electrolysis is performed with renewable energy, this is the most sustainable method of hydrogen production. It has the potential to reduce costs and increase energy efficiency for hydrogen creation. 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.

An electron beam travelling through air will quickly lose electrons as they collide with air molecules and lose energy. To keep the electron beam circulating fully in the storage ring, the tube they travel in must be kept at a very high vacuum. To measure the vacuum pressure, different types of gauging are used and feedback from these gauges are embedded into the control system of Diamond.

One of these gauges is known as a Pirani gauge. This works by looking at how gas molecules in the vacuum cool a hot filament. The Pirani gauge’s response to a change in pressure depends on the gas present in the system, since every gas has a different specific heat capacity. Understanding how a Pirani gauge responds to these different gases is important in the safe running of the Diamond accelerators.

This project will focus on testing the various responses of the Pirani gauges. As an example, you will build a test chamber that can be pumped down to the working pressure range of a Pirani gauge. Then you will inject it with different gases, each with different heat capacities. You will measure the pressure in the chamber for each gas and analyse the information to understand the response of the Pirani gauge.

Have you ever wondered how we capture images of tiny objects like proteins or cells and how these images can save lives? At Diamond Light Source, we use cutting-edge electron microscopes and advanced software to collect and process data efficiently. This project offers you the chance to learn how to analyse large datasets from proteins, determine their 3D structures, and learn how to extract valuable information performing modelling. If you have a passion for biology and computers, this is the perfect place for you to explore the fascinating world of image processing.

The long-wavelength macromolecular crystallography beamline I23 uses X-ray diffraction to study 3D structures of molecules. X-ray tomography is also applied to image and reconstruct 3D models of macromolecular crystals, to help improve the quality of diffraction data. The student will learn how to collect X-ray tomography images, process the data to produce models of the samples under study and then label the different materials within the samples using advanced visualisation software.