Published 29th June 2017
EBS is advancing daily and that progress is not limited to the accelerator complex. The ESRF has announced an ambitious beamline portfolio to exploit the enhanced performance of EBS and this includes the builiding of four completely new beamlines from 2018-2022.
These flagship beamlines are being designed to underpin research that addresses the major challenges facing our society, for example defining the next generation of biomaterials and new sustainable materials, developing new drugs, revealing the complex mechanisms of living organisms and imaging in high resolution 3D to reconstruct historical artefacts and fossils.
Take a tour of the new beamlines:
A BEAMLINE FOR SERIAL MACROMOLECULAR CRYSTALLOGRAPHY
Serial crystallography is emerging as a unique technique to solve structures of important classes of proteins available only in sub-micron crystals, whilst managing radiation damage. This EBS beamline will provide new perspectives for life sciences by providing a unique facility worldwide for its flux-density and stability.
Examples of research applications: fundamental problems such as enzyme kinetics; drug effects into target proteins; determinants neutralizing human antibodies against viruses.
A BEAMLINE FOR HARD X-RAY DIFFRACTION MICROSCOPY
Dark-field hard X-ray microscopy is unique to study the hierarchical correlations of structures in materials from the millimetre range down to tens of nanometres. This beamline will provide new perspectives for a deeper understanding of material properties in nano-structured and non-homogeneous materials by providing a unique facility worldwide for its hard X-ray penetration, flux-density and stability.
Examples of research applications: multi-scale characterization of modern engineered materials; biomaterials like artificial hips, implants; effects of environmental agents; material fatigue in transportation.
The ESRF Council gave the green light for the new beamlines at its 67th meeting on 27 June 2017. ©ESRF/S. Candé
A BEAMLINE FOR COHERENT X-RAYS DYNAMICS AND IMAGING APPLICATIONS
Coherent X-rays are ideal to study the secret correlations in materials and living matter in 3D-space and in time under operando conditions. This beamline will provide new perspectives to observe dynamic processes under real conditions and detect characteristic correlations determining reversible and reversible processes down to the single atom by exploiting the EBS unrivalled X-ray coherent flux.
Examples of research applications: dynamics and structure of muscle deformation; biomineralisation processes in teeth (dentin); image formation in photonic devices (smartphone panels, glasses and melts under real conditions).
A BEAMLINE FOR HIGH THROUGHPUT LARGE FIELD PHASE-CONTRAST
With very high energy and X-ray coherence, high throughput tomography is ideally suited to study large objects (~1 metre) with a sub-micrometre resolution in a non-destructive way. This beamline will provide new perspectives for research in palaeontology and archaeology, but also for the industrial study of materials by providing the largest high-energy and high-coherence synchrotron beam worldwide for hierarchical imaging and high throughput tomography.
Examples of 3D-imaging research applications: materials for space, aeronautics, automotive; micron-scale anatomy of complete organs; hierarchical imaging of large specimens (e.g. mummies); 3D-virtual reconstruction of fossils and unique artefacts.