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One of the most exciting things about Diamond is that it is a catalyst for change. The facility is changing the world through the scientific discoveries its users and in-house researchers are making and, at the same time, changing itself through a continual programme of upgrades, new beamlines, and complementary off-line facilities. In October 2010, the UK Government confirmed funding for Phase III, to provide for the design, procurement, construction and commissioning of a further ten state-of-the-art beamlines. Due for completion by 2018, they will bring the total number of beamlines to 33, ultimately strengthening and deepening the breadth of scientific research enabled by the Diamond synchrotron.
B21 enables the study of macromolecular assemblies in solution for use across a wide range of biological and biomedical applications. The B21 beamline is a Small-Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS) instrument that is the only technique that gives you the complete structural picture of the thermodynamic state. Currently in optimisation mode, users will be able to send in samples by post (mail-in) for remote data collection experiments, with a scattering vector range of 0.004-0.42 Å-1. By early 2015, its capabilities will expand to accommodate measurements as large as 5000 Å. B21 has been designed with high throughput in mind and is currently utilising the EMBL designed BioSAXS robot. Software is being developed through the GDA framework and Scatter, which will allow a fully automated collection, reduction, and analysis process for each sample measured
The I21 beamline is a dedicated Resonant Inelastic Soft X-ray Scattering (RIXS) facility at Diamond Light Source which is currently under construction as part of Phase III. The beamline will be 81 m long, with its endstation and spectrometer accommodated in a dedicated external building adjacent to the main synchrotron building. A highly monochromatised, i.e. very narrow in energy bandwidth, spatially focused and tunable incident X-ray beam will be provided, together with a long (~15 m) and rotatable spectrometer with correspondingly high resolving power. By studying the energy and momentum differences between the incident and the outgoing X-rays, one can obtain information such as the local lattice structure (local crystal field), electron orbitals (orbital excitations), and collective lattice (phonons), magnetic (magnons) and charge excitations of materials under investigation. The key research activity of the beamline focuses on condensed matter physics and materials science, especially highly correlated electronic systems and new functional materials such as Mott insulators, high-temperature superconductivity, oxide thin films, catalysts, graphene etc. The technique can be potentially extended to study problems in chemistry, geology and biology. First light is expected in 2016, followed by first users in spring 2017.
VERSOX will be a highly versatile soft X-ray beamline with two end stations, one for High Throughput (HT) and an Ambient Pressure (AP) end station, that will jointly support a wide community of users. B07 will employ two main techniques, Near-Edge X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (NEXAFS) and X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), to carry out investigations in a wide range of scientific fields, including heterogeneous catalysis, pharmaceuticals and biomaterials under realistic conditions, electronic and photonic materials, environmental and space science on liquids/ices, and heritage conservation. Currently the AP end station is under construction on I09 where it will also be commissioned and available to users in 2015. It is expected to be operational on B07 by the end of 2016.
Diamond Light Source is the UK's national synchrotron science facility, located at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire.
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