Publications | Diamond News Autumn 2009

Diamond News Autumn 2009

Moving along the spectrum: Diamond’s infrared beamline sees the light

Diamond’s latest experimental station to go into commissioning is the Infrared Microscopy beamline (B22), the first at the UK facility to be using that specific range of long wavelengths.

B22 beamline team
B22 beamline team
B22 differs from the X-ray beamlines at Diamond by having half of its optical elements sitting within the storage ring to enable the infrared (IR) light to be focussed as close as possible to its bending magnet source. Its setup is unique due to the entire system being under an ultrahigh vacuum, with no windows throughout the beam pipe but a single IR transparent diamond window at the end, ensuring optimal transmission of the widest IR beam to the sample.

With the potential to operate in the full IR range, initially in the mid-IR and afterwards into the far-IR (or THz) range, B22 will enable researchers to carry out IR spectromicroscopy experiments at the highest diffraction limit – the highest spatial resolution achievable at these micron-scale wavelengths. The beamline’s two end stations will provide a new tool for physical scientists interested in areas such as materials science, surface chemical-physics and condensed matter studies or high pressures; and another tool for applications in fields that benefit from using non-ionising radiation such as the biomedical sciences and biomineralogy, as well as heritage science.

“Researchers will be able to use B22’s infrared rays to look at the molecular scale of their samples, complementing the atomic structure studies already available on the other beamlines at Diamond. We are able to scan broad wavelengths within the infrared range in just a few seconds for a single spectrum, or in a couple of minutes to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. This means that we will be able to study many different biological and physical processes: from important biomedical studies such as the antitumoral drugs effect on single cells, or conformational changes of enzymes to see their activation; to the characterization of semiconductors and superconductors for applications in materials research.”

Dr Gianfelice Cinque, Principal Beamline Scientist for B22

With the first general purpose end station now in place, the commissioning phase of the beamline is being carried out by the B22 team. Currently, the operating end station can carry out the entire range of IR experiments available on B22. The arrival of the second end station, which is due to be ready for users in spring 2010, will enable B22’s workload to be separated out, with most of the life sciences experiments moving to the new end station. Together, the two end stations will provide dedicated, easy setup environments for achieving the reproducible setup necessary to simplify each type of experiment.

Diamond’s Infrared Microscopy beamline has a wide range of applications, beyond those mentioned in this article. For a full list of B22’s capabilities, visit the dedicated area on Diamond’s website: www.diamond.ac.uk/B22

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