11
March 2023 ESRFnews
INSIGHT
Has the EBS upgrade placed more
demands on the unit?
Yes. According to Watier there has
been a vast increase in the number
of requests. The 100-fold higher
brilliance and coherence of the new
source opens up more possibilities
for in situ or operando sample
environments, while the tiny beam
size has put yet greater demands on
the unit’s creations, as they must be
more stable spatially and in terms of
temperature. More obviously, the EBS
has the potential for incredibly fast
data collection. For this, the heavy
robotic arms of yesteryear are being
sidelined in favour of small and light
bespoke sample changers Last year
the unit helped to create such a sample
changer for the chemical company
BASF so that it could move samples
through the ID31 beamline at a rate
of one sample every tenth of a second
ESRFnews December 2022 p23
Having a custom sample changer is
critical to avoid losing precious beam
time says Watier What once took a
minute now takes a second
Jon Cartwright
step, the bespoke apparatus and any
necessary accessories – temperature
regulators, power supplies, QR-code
readers, pumps, alignment lasers and
so on – are loaded onto a blue trolley
for transport to the beamline.
How long does it take?
In one recent commission, the unit
had to create a 3D-printed alumina
furnace that could reach 1000 °C
inside while remaining cool outside,
and exhibit little expansion. That took
the four-strong sample-environment
team 13 prototype iterations over a year,
although usually they are afforded much
less time often less than a month We
need to be extremely efficient and do
nearly everything in house says Yves
Watier the head of the unit We have
an experiment in a few months or a few
weeks We need to have something It
doesnt need to be perfect but it needs
to work For the same reason he adds
they aim to design everything to be
as easy to use and maintenancefree
as possible Reliability is important
because it means less live support for us
and more time to prepare for the next
experiment
The sample
environment team,
left to right: Yves
Watier, trainee
Tanguy Hebert,
Johannes Frey and
Benjamin Richer.
(The fourth non-
trainee member,
Romain Garlet, is
not pictured.)
What is the Sample Environment
Unit?
Located opposite the BM07
beamline, the unit provides users
with the apparatus they need to
perform experiments at non-ambient
(including extreme) temperatures,
and at high-throughput. For high and
low temperatures, the apparatus is a
furnace or cryostat, respectively; for
high-throughput, it is a robotic sample
changer. (High-pressure requirements
are addressed by another ESRF
unit.) The Sample Environment
Unit is far from a lending service,
however. Because there is almost no
standardisation in the shapes and
sizes of samples – one group of users
might be studying a fist-sized lump of
material, for instance, while another
might be studying a hair-like filament
that is very hard to secure – practically
every experiment supported by the
unit requires at least modification of
some existing apparatus, and quite
possibly new apparatus built entirely
from scratch.
How does it do this?
With a suite of expertise and tools at
its disposal. Typically the apparatus
is designed via CAD and then
prototyped and built with various
machines welding platforms and
furnaces for making ceramics before
being assembled with electronic
components and programmed One
of the most important tools is the
3D printer which allows highly
intricate parts to be created from
resin or ceramic alumina cheaply
and quickly onsite if parts must be
made of metal these can be swiftly
subcontracted once the nonmetal
prototype is finalised In the final
For experiments at non-
ambient temperatures,
or those requiring high
throughput, the Sample
Environment Unit is
crucial for getting the
most out of the EBS.
Out of the ordinary
Y V E S W A T I E R
What
once took
a minute
now takes
a second