Village Updates

The Spectroscopy Village incorporates six distinct beamlines which offer a range of techniques to analyse the local atomic and electronic structure of solid, liquid or gaseous samples using X-ray spectroscopy. Among the techniques hosted by the village are X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS), X-ray Fluorescence (XRF), Imaging, X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Small-Angle Scattering (SAS), Inelastic X-ray Scattering (IXS) and energy dispersive Extended X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (EXAFS). The beamlines cover a broad range of highly complementary scientific research areas to meet the requirements of the diverse user communities.

The Soft Condensed Matter village has a broad reach in terms of scientific coverage of research applications, as well as a variety of experimental methods offered by the four operational beamlines, although its principal focus is in the Life Sciences.

The Engineering and Environment village started with three beamlines – the Powder Diffraction beamline (I11), the Joint Engineering, Environmental and Processing (JEEP) beamline (I12) and the Extreme Conditions beamline (I15). A further beamline, XPDF (I15-1), welcomed first users in April 2016. Although all four beamlines are very distinct, they share a similar experimental and data acquisition setup. The same software is deployed throughout the village, providing users with easy-to-use push button software for data analysis. The village is also moving towards a model where sample environments can be easily shared across beamlines or run in the same way by the village’s support teams.

The Surfaces and Interfaces village comprises six different beamlines, five of which are in operation and one is currently under development. All six beamlines support investigations into the physical or electronic structures of interfaces and surfaces, with users having the ability to study core and weakly bound electrons, magnetism, atomic and nanostructure and to image with chemical sensitivity. Together the village’s beamlines provide a range of techniques including X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Photo Emission Electron Microscopy and X-ray Magnetic Circular or Linear Dichroism (XMLD or XMCD). A choice of sample environments and X-ray energies opens up the village to a range of scientific studies, with strengths including the study of multiferroics, superconducting materials, topological insulators and photovoltaics.

Synchrotron radiation has revolutionised our understanding of materials through X-ray diffraction and imaging techniques. The Materials Village at Diamond continues to provide the tools to extend and broaden our current knowledge, from probing materials designed for energy storage and carbon capture to imaging natural biological and geological structures.

Diamond’s Macromolecular Crystallography (MX) Village provides a broad range of beamlines with specialised capabilities in determining the three dimensional structures of large biological molecules. MX is a vital tool for linking structure to function, and for investigating protein folding and other structural information. The challenges today also lie in understanding the dynamics of protein function within complex assemblies and cellular pathways.