Synopsis

ID10 is a multi-purpose, high-brilliance undulator beamline. Endstation EH1 is for high-resolution X-ray scattering and surface diffraction on liquid and solid interfaces, combining multiple techniques in a single instrument. Endstation EH2 is for coherent small-angle X-ray scattering, X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy and coherent diffraction.

ID10EH1 Users Guide
 
ID10EH2 Users Guide

 

The main features of the beamline are:

 

EH1-SI (Soft Interfaces)

  • high-resolution scattering instrumentation for horizontal and vertical scattering geometry
  • X-ray beam deflector for scattering from liquids (Qz < 2.4 Å-1)
  • energy-tunability: 7 keV < E < 24 keV with Si(111) and 14 keV < E < 30 keV with Si(311)
  • Liquid nitrogen cooled Silicon (111) or (311) crystal channel cut monochromator (intrinsic energy resolution ΔE/E: 1.4*10 -4 and 2.7*10 -5, respectively)
  • double-mirror setup for a strong suppression of higher harmonics.

EH2-CS (Coherent Scattering)

  • High-resolution instrumentation for horizontal scattering geometries (SAXS to WAXS)
  • Possibility of grazing incidence scattering from liquid surfaces
  • Large energy-tunability (7 keV < E < 24 keV)
  • Water cooled Silicon (111) crystal pseudo channel cut monochromators
    (intrinsic energy resolution ΔE/E : 1.4*10-4)
  • High coherent flux (7 keV = 1010 ph/sec/100mA; 8.1 keV =4*1010 ph/sec/100mA; 21 keV = 1010 ph/sec/100mA  in a 10x10 µm2 beamspot, ΔE/E = 1.4*10-4)
  • Specialized in scattering techniques using a coherent X-ray beam
  • Optimized for X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy (XPCS) (7-10 keV, 21-24 keV) and coherent X-ray diffraction imaging (CXDI) (7-10 keV)
  • "Pink" beam option (ΔE/E = 1-3%) (available from January 2013)

Scientific Applications

EH1 experimental station

With the techniques of GID, XRR and GISAXS, length scales from sub-nm to 100 nm, in some cases even up to 1000 nm, can be explored. This allows to investigate the structure and self-organization processes at surfaces, interfaces and in thin films both in-plane and normal to the film. Among the applications are studies of:

  • Langmuir films, amphiphilic polymers and nano- particle at the air-water interface
  • Surface structure of complex fluids (colloid, gel, sol,…)
  • Capillary wave and surface roughness
  • Structure and growth of two dimensional crystals of molecules, macromolecules and proteins
  • Morphology and crystalline structure of thin organic and non-organic films on solid substrates
  • Shape, strain, ordering and correlation of crystalline nanostructures, quantum dots and wires on substrates

EH2 experimental station

X-ray photon correlation spectrsocopy (XPCS) is a technique based on quantifying the temporal correlations in a fluctuating speckle pattern produced in the far-field by a coherent X-ray beam. XPCS allows the study of slow in-equilibrium and out-of-equilibrium dynamics in disordered or modulated materials on timescales beyond the reach of the inelastic (X-ray or neutron) techniques. XPCS is complementary to dynamic light scattering (DLS) and typically covers a time window of 10-8 s < t < 1000 s. The combination of small-angle (SAXS) and wide-angle (WAXS) scattering allows to cover length scales from several thousand Angstroms (Q ~ 10-3 Å-1) down to atomic resolution (Q ~ 1 Å-1).

Examples of applications are:

  • Dynamics in colloidal and polymer systems
  • Domain-formation and dynamics in phase separating systems
  • Dynamics in glass forming systems
  • Dynamics in structural glasses
  • Critical dynamics
  • Surface, capillary wave and membrane dynamics


CXDI is a lens-less imaging method where the electron density distribution in real space is obtained by phasing an oversampled speckle pattern in reciprocal space recorded in the far field via an iterative phase retrieval algorithm.  Imaging of non-crystalline 3 micron objects can routinely be performed at 18 nm resolution in 3D at 8KeV.
The target of CXDI is high resolution imaging of:

  • Biomineral hierarchical structures
  • Porous semiconductor materials
  • Mineral nanocrystals and nano-structures
  • Biological cells

Techniques Available

EH1 experimental station

High-resolution Wide-angle Scattering (WAXS)

A versatile 8-circle diffractometer (2 (detector) + 3 (sample V-stage)+3 (sample H-stage)) at EH1 with a variable resolution set-up on the detector side (slits and crystal analysers) together with the available energy tunability permits virtually every diffraction experiment in horizontal or vertical scattering geometry.

Surface Scattering Techniques

  1. Grazing Incidence Small-Angle X-ray Scattering (GISAXS)
  2. Grazing Incidence Diffraction (GID)
  3. X-ray Reflectivity (XRR)

The EH1 instrumentation is compatible with GISAXS ,GID and XRR geometries in horizontal or vertical scattering geometry. The setup is optimized for experiments on liquid and fluid surfaces which are a particular specialty of the EH1 end station. A temperature and atmosphere controlled Langmuir trough integrated with active an antivibrational system is available at the beamline. Scattering profiles can be taken with either a 0-D detector or a 1-D detector.

 

EH2 experimental station

X-ray Photon Correlation Spectroscopy (XPCS)

XPCS can be performed in the geometries:
- SAXS (7-10 keV, 21-24 keV), Q min: 10-3Å-1. Standard SAXS profile can be taken with either a 0-D detector or a 2-D detector. The setup is optimized for dynamic XPCS experiments employing a coherent X-ray beam and not for high through-put SAXS data acquisition.
- WAXS (7-10 keV), Q max: 3 Å-1
- Bragg (7-10 keV), Q max: 3 Å-1
- Grazing incidence (7-10 keV)

The Time-correlation functions can be recorded with help of a digital autocorrelator (0D) or by a in-house multi-tau software correlator (2D).

Coherent X-ray Diffraction Imaging (CXDI)

The high resolution goniometer with on-axis microscope is used for samples in air on with samples on Si3N4 membranes. The setup  is compatible with a cryo-stream for cryo protection of frozen hydrated biological samples.  Up to 7 meters sample to detector distance allows measuring oversampled far-field diffraction patterns from up to 7 microns big object with the Maxipix 2x2 pixel detector.
3D reconstructions can be retrieved almost "on-line" by an in-house software.

Surface Scattering Techniques

The EH2 instrumentation is compatible with Grazing-incidence (GID) and Grazing-incidence Samll-angle scattering (GISAXS) geometries in horizontal or vertical scattering geometry allowing in particular also experiments on liquid surfaces.

Complementary Information