What is Aster'X ?

Considering the technical complexity of synchrotron radiation experiments and the difficulty to obtain beamtime via the various program committees, few new teams having scientific problems adapted to these instruments use the FAME beamline. We decided then in 2004 to organize an annual training for users: FAME+. Aster'X is the continuity of FAME+ since 2021. This training is organized with the organizational help of the CNRS permanent training and the support of INSU CNRS institute.

When?

Since 2004, the formation is carried out every year. The language is French. Please check http://f-crg.fr/ to have the last information.

Main goals

The main goals of this formation are to explain:

• the technical aspects of the experiment and the various analysis possibilities,

• the optical adjustments of the beamline.

The training is conceived with lectures, praticals on the beamline and tutorials on computer. To summarize, the training clarifying the FAME operations have several interests:

• open the beamline to the whole communities,

• make more autonomous the actual or future users, from a technical point of view,

• increase the safety on the beamline,

• give to the users a critical glance on all the important points which allow the realization of an experiment under optimal conditions,

• give to the users the up-to-date tools to analyze their data.

This project was initially reserved for the Earth sciences community but it has been quite soon opened to the other scientific communities. Since 2004, 114 trainees issued from 45 laboratories followed this course.

 

FAME+ lectures

Denis Testemale - XAS introduction / XAS introduction

Yves Joly - XANES calculation / Calculs XANES

Manuel Muñoz - EXAFS theory / Théorie de l'EXAFS

Jean-Louis Hazemann - Beamline optic generalities / Généralités sur l’optique de la ligne

Olivier Proux - Detection apparatus / Systèmes de détection

Olivier Proux - Analyser crystals / Cristaux analyseurs

Isabelle Kieffer - Sample preparation / Préparation des échantillons

Olivier Proux - Proposal / Dépôt de projet

Géraldine Sarret - Analyse par composantes principales / PCA

Former lectures

Manuel Muñoz - Wavelets method / Méthode des ondelettes

Marie-Anne Arrio - Multiplets method / Méthode des multiplets

Pierre Lagarde - EXAFS theory / Théorie de l’EXAFS

FAME+ Tutorials & Practicals

Yves Joly - XANES calculation / Simulation spectroscopie XANES

Isabelle Kieffer - Réglages automatiques de l'optique / Automatic optical elements alignment

Former Tutorials & Practicals

Denis Testemale - High pressure experiment / Expériences sous pression

Amélie Bordage & Marie-Anne Arrio - Multiplets calculation / Calculs multiplets

FAME+ computing ressources

EXAFS analysis using Athena & Artemis

EXAFS analysis is performed using Athena and Artemis programs which can be downloaded here. Several useful tutorials can be also downloaded here.

XANES calculations using FDMNES

A package including a Windows XP executable, a Linux 64 bits executable, the FORTRAN 90 routines, a set of examples and the manual can be downloaded here, with a folder containing the examples for the tutorial here

 

Charge Transfer Multiplet Calculations for X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (CTM4XAS)

The program can be downloaded, after simple registration, here

The software can be installed on windows, following the instructions

 

Continuous wavelet transformation

The continuous wavelet transformation software has been written by Matthew Marcus (from ALS Berkeley) with LabView and can be downloaded here, on the "utilites" page (on the left).

You need to install the Runtime engine, to copy the lvanlys.dll and the wavelet.exe in the same folder.

LabView is not required, but you will need:

• to have the administrator right to operate (not only during the installation procedure)

• to have as a decimal separator a dot '.', not a coma ','

Reference paper of the program can be found here.

 Quality Verification  of the fluorescence spectra

This is a python source code called canb.py installed on the user's computer. To installed the code on your computer under linux, you should download canb.py

Then you must installed:

•PyQt4 (under ubuntu, install python-qt4)

•Qwt5 (under ubuntu, install python-qwt5-qt4)

•numpy

Then to execute the program, open a terminal and enter the command: python canb.py

Other lectures

As an introduction to the multiplet lectures, two wiki pages on the crystal field theory, in french and in english.

For the EXAFS theory, numerous lectures can be found, for example on our webpage in french or in english.

Those who want a more detailed overview on Energy resolving semiconductor detectors for X-ray spectroscopy can read this John Morse's lecture.