X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) is an established technique providing essential element specific information about the local atomic geometry and about the chemical state of the absorbing atom. The technique is not limited to the crystalline phase materials, but may be used with highly disordered amorphous, liquid and gaseous samples.

B18 is a general purpose XAS beamline on Diamond, being part of an integrated project devoted to XAS, which includes I18, a Microfocus beamline based on an undulator source (2-20 keV), and I20, a high flux versatile multi-pole wiggler, (4-35 keV). The Core-XAS beamline naturally complements the specialized activities undertaken at the other XAS beamlines, allowing experiments with more general and less demanding specifications, preliminary studies, and open to the access of one-time and new users.

Beamline B18 covers the energy ranges of both I18 and I20. It is used for an extensive range of studies that underpin research programmes across a wide range of applications, including local structure and electronic state of active components, and the study of materials including fluids, crystalline and non-crystalline (amorphous phases & colloids) solids, surfaces and biomaterials.