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Adam
Round
,
Pierre
Aller
,
Richard
Bean
,
Johan
Bielecki
,
Agata
Butryn
,
Nicholas E.
Devenish
,
Raphael
De Wijn
,
Thomas
Dietze
,
Katerina
Doerner
,
Fabio
Dall'Antonia
,
Gabriele
Giovanetti
,
Huijong
Han
,
Vincent
Hennicke
,
Chan
Kim
,
Yoonhee
Kim
,
Marco
Kloos
,
Jayanath C. P.
Koliyadu
,
Gabriel
Leen
,
Romain
Letrun
,
Luis
Lopez Morillo
,
Allen M.
Orville
,
Tim
Pakendorf
,
Marco
Ramilli
,
Nadja
Reimers
,
Patrick
Reinke
,
Juan
Sanchez-Weatherby
,
Tokushi
Sato
,
Robin
Schubert
,
Joachim
Schulz
,
Cedric
Signe Takem
,
Marcin
Sikorski
,
Prasad
Thute
,
Fabian
Trost
,
Oleksii
Turkot
,
Patrik
Vagovic
,
Mohammad
Vakili
,
Raul
Villanueva Guerrero
,
Henry N.
Chapman
,
Alke
Meents
,
Serguei
Molodtsov
,
Sakura
Pascarelli
,
Thomas
Tschentschera
,
Adrian
Mancuso
,
Pontus
Fischer
,
Sebastian
Guenther
Open Access
Abstract: The Single-Particle, Clusters and Biomolecules and Serial Femtosecond Crystallography (SPB/SFX) scientific instrument at the European X-Ray Free-Electron Laser (EuXFEL) became operational with user experiments in September 2017. The unique properties and capabilities of the EuXFEL, enabling megahertz data collection rates, provide more rapid data collection with improved statistics compared with other XFEL facilities. This improves the feasibility of obtaining multiple data points in time-resolved experiments and hence enables the observation of reactions in greater detail (molecular movies). In collaboration with the SFX User Consortium (SFX UC), the SPB/SFX instrument was designed to further increase user access and research outcomes. Focusing the pulses downstream of the first interaction region [described previously (Mancuso et al., 2019)], a second experiment plane is enabled, which allows for greater optimization and more efficient usage of available beam time. Additionally, the SFX UC provided further instrumentation to provide improved capabilities on SPB/SFX. The aim for additional and extended functionality for the second interaction region was to enable sample-efficient data collection at atmospheric pressure in an environment where the sample temperature and humidity can be controlled. This paper describes the extended capabilities of the downstream interaction region of the SPB/SFX instrument and its major components, in particular its X-ray focusing optics, vacuum to atmospheric pressure out-coupling, available sample delivery methods and 2D detector, and the supporting optical laser systems for pump–probe experiments.
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Nov 2025
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B16-Test Beamline
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B.
Cline
,
D.
Banks
,
M.
Bishop
,
A.
Davis
,
J.
Harris
,
M.
Hart
,
S.
Knowles
,
T.
Nicholls
,
J.
Nobes
,
S.
Pradeep
,
M.
Roberts
,
M. C.
Veale
,
M. D.
Wilson
,
V. P.
Dhamgaye
,
O. J. L.
Fox
,
K. J. S.
Sawhney
,
S.
Scully
Diamond Proposal Number(s):
[36472]
Open Access
Abstract: In this paper, results are presented from the characterisation of a 2 mm thick Redlen Technologies high-flux-capable Cadmium Zinc Telluride (HF-CZT) sensor hybridised to the small-pixel, spectroscopic-imaging HEXITEC_MHz ASIC. Dynamic datasets were taken on the B16 Test Beamline at the Diamond Light Source to study a previously-identified 'excess-leakage-current' phenomenon in HF-CZT, where additional leakage current was temporarily generated upon the application of an X-ray flux. A study of the response of the detector as a function of X-ray intensity demonstrated a measurable excess leakage current signal above 105 ph s-1 mm-2. At a 20 keV flux of 7.81 × 106 ph s-1 mm-2, this effect contributed a signal equivalent to 3.79 ± 1.59 nA mm-2in addition to the expected photocurrent. On removal of X-rays at this flux, this excess leakage current took ∼ 10 s to decay below the noise floor of the detector. This long lifetime has implications for detectors required to operate at high frame rates and fluxes. The use of a small-pixel detector also allowed the spatial variation of this effect to be studied. A per-pixel comparison between the magnitude of the excess leakage current and the spectroscopic performance of the pixel showed no correlation. This suggests that the phenomenon is less likely to be a bulk-crystal effect and more likely the result of the properties of the CZT surface or metal/semiconductor interface. An Arrhenius analysis of the temperature-dependence of the dark and excess leakage currents in the detector yielded values of 0.69 ± 0.04 eV and 0.13 ± 0.01 eV respectively. The change in dark current with temperature is consistent with deep levels pinning the Fermi level close to the mid band gap, whilst the activation energy of the excess leakage current suggests shallower defects at the metal-semiconductor interface are responsible.
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Oct 2025
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I24-Microfocus Macromolecular Crystallography
Detectors
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Open Access
Abstract: The JUNGFRAU detector is a charge integrating, high-frame-rate, imaging detector developed by the PSI detector group, originally to support the SwissFEL Aramis beamline. The detector includes adaptive gain switching to give single photon sensitivity whilst also allowing sufficient analogue dynamic range to record ∼10,000 12keV photons. The use of adaptive gains requires a multi-stage data correction procedure, factoring in the pedestal and gain value for each pixel for each gain mode: at 2kHz frame rate this makes for a non-trivial undertaking.
At the SLS a data capture system for this has been developed, JUNGFRAUJOCH which uses a number of Xilinx FPGA boards to read the UDP data stream and perform the correction and the initial stage of data compression, before reading out to the CPU for compression. Whilst this is an effective solution, the technology choice of FPGA high level synthesis for programming has a very high barrier to entry. Some kind of hardware acceleration is however critical to ensure the correction and compression keep up with the data acquisition rate over the long term.
At Diamond we are also acquiring a JUNGFRAU 9M detector, to use for rotation and serial crystallography on beamline I24. This brings us to the challenge: adopt JUNGFRAUJOCH or develop an alternative system, since the wider view of high throughput computing has changed over the last few years. Here we present an alternative system build around the NVIDIA Grace Hopper Superchip (GH200) which includes a 72 ARM NEOVERSE v2 CPU cores, an NVIDIA H100 GPU and high bandwidth memory (Figure 1). The capabilities of this system allow us to consider building a data capture, correction and initial analysis system to support the JUNGFRAU 9M detector at Diamond Light Source, using far more mainstream technologies (CUDA for the accelerator programming, SLS detector for the front-end data capture) and offering the opportunity to tailor the system to fit in with the use cases being developed at Diamond Light Source beamline I24. This development also takes the opportunity to explore alternative methods for representing the data, keeping the data from modules separated allowing parallelism in data capture and analysis.
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Oct 2025
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I09-Surface and Interface Structural Analysis
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Ye
Wang
,
Manish
Chhowalla
,
Yiru
Zhu
,
Tieyuan
Bian
,
Ziwei J.
Yang
,
Yuanyua
Zhao
,
Han
Yan
,
Yang
Li
,
Yan
Wang
,
Feng
Ding
,
Jun
Yin
Diamond Proposal Number(s):
[35092, 30105, 33391, 32963, 38086]
Open Access
Abstract: Engineering chiral optical and electronic properties of materials is interesting for applications in sensing and quantum information. State-of-the-art chiral optoelectronic devices are mostly based on three-dimensional (3D) and quasi-two-dimensional (2D) materials. Here we demonstrate chiral 2D MoS2 with sub-nanometer thickness via chirality transfer from l-/d-penicillamine (l-/d-PEN). We report a giant molar ellipticity of 108 deg·cm2/dmol in monolayer solid-state films, up to 3 orders of magnitude higher than 3D chiral materials. Phototransistors with chiral 2D MoS2 channels exhibit gate-tunable circularly polarized light detection with responsivity of >102 A/W and anisotropy g-factor of 1.98, close to the theoretical maximum of 2.0. The reduced dimensionality magnifies the chirality transfer efficiency, allowing realization of ultrasensitive detectors for circularly polarized photons.
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Oct 2025
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B16-Test Beamline
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Open Access
Abstract: A multi-strip detector made of synthetic single crystal diamond (SCD), based on a p-type/intrinsic diamond/Schottky metal transverse configuration and operating at zero bias voltage, was developed for imaging from extreme UV (EUV) to soft X-rays. The photodetector was patterned with 32 strips made of boron-doped diamond directly deposited, by means of the CVD technique and the standard lithographic technique, on top of the HPHT diamond growth substrate. The width of each strip and the gap between two adjacent strips were 100 μm and 20 μm, respectively. The strips were embedded in intrinsic SCD of an active area of 3.2 × 2.5 mm2, also deposited using the CVD technique in a separate growing machine. In the present structure, the prototype photodetector is suitable for 1D imaging. However, all the dimensions above can be varied depending on the applications. The use of p-type diamond strips represents an attempt to mitigate the photoelectron emission from metal contacts, a non-negligible problem under EUV irradiation. The detector was tested with UV radiation and soft X-rays. To test the photodetector as an imaging device, a headboard (XDAS-DH) and a signal processing board (XDAS-SP) were used as front-end electronics. A standard XDAS software was used to acquire the experimental data. The results of the tests and the detector’s construction process are presented and discussed in the paper.
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Oct 2025
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B16-Test Beamline
Detectors
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Abstract: In this project sensitivity mapping using a source of focused X-ray microbeam was performed on three fabricated samples (VS-Pt, HPS-Pt and HPS-Al/Pt). The VS-Pt sample was chosen due to its special features such as thin nitrogen lines and substrate area. The source of focused X-ray beam (from synchrotron micro-beam called Diamond Light Source, DLS) was investigated in order to choose the optimum conditions to obtain high resolution images of the nitrogen lines within the sample. Additionally the sensitivity mapping of HPS-Pt and HPS-Al/Pt was investigated to study the effect of beam size, step displacement, bias polarity, annealing, and electrical contact were studied on the homogeneity of current response in order to choose optimum conditions for synchrotron measurements. High spatial resolution maps obtained for VS-Pt sample with a micro step displacement of 10 μm or less. Photocurrent is affected by bias polarity; current at negative bias is higher than at positive bias. There are regions with high current thus taking more time to restore to baseline value. Time rises slowly near nitrogen line with stabilization time increasing with bias. For HPS-Al/Pt, as bias increases, homogeneity of current response does not improve. At different negative biases, HPS-Al/Pt exhibits high dark current, unstable signals, and very low photocurrent. For HPS-Pt, at a bias of +50 and –50 V, current response is uniform becoming more homogenous at 100 V, and improving further as the bias increases up to +200 V; making it the most suitable choice for synchrotron measurements.
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Aug 2025
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Detectors
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N.
Goyal
,
S.
Aplin
,
A.
Balerna
,
P.
Bell
,
J.
Casas
,
M.
Cascella
,
S.
Chatterji
,
C.
Cohen
,
E.
Collet
,
P.
Fajardo
,
E. N.
Gimenez
,
H.
Graafsma
,
H.
Hiresmann
,
F.j.
Iguaz
,
K.
Klementiv
,
K.
Kolodjiez
,
L.
Manzanillas
,
T.
Martin
,
R. H.
Menk
,
M.
Porro
,
M.
Quispe
,
B.
Schmitt
,
S.
Scully
,
M.
Turcato
,
C.
Ward
,
E.
Welter
Abstract: The XAFS-DET work package of the European LEAPS-INNOV project is developing high-purity Germanium detectors for synchrotron applications requiring spectroscopic-grade response. The detectors integrate three key features: (1) newly designed monolithic Germanium sensors optimised to mitigate charge-sharing events, (2) an improved cooling and mechanical design structure supported by thermal simulations, and (3) complete electronic chain featuring a low-noise CMOS technology based preamplifier, enabling high X-ray count rate capability over a broad energy range (5-100 keV). This paper discusses the first integration and characterization of one of the two multi-element Ge detectors at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF). The integration phase included validating high-throughput front-end electronics, integrating them with the Ge sensor, and operating them at liquid nitrogen temperature, in addition to the experimental characterization, which consists of electronics noise study and spectroscopic performance evaluation.
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Jul 2025
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I13-1-Coherence
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Diamond Proposal Number(s):
[34164]
Open Access
Abstract: X-ray ptychography is a robust microscopy technique with nanoscale resolution that requires a spatially and temporally coherent illumination. In a typical setup, the temporal coherence requirements are satisfied by monochromating the x-ray source, e.g., using a crystal monochromator. Recent studies have shown that energy resolving, or hyperspectral, detectors can to some extent replace the role of the monochromator to perform, e.g., edge-subtraction ptychographic imaging with broadband radiation in a single acquisition. Scaling this capability from two dimensions (2D) to three dimensions (3D), and from a single absorption edge to multiple edges, is critical for its applications in structural and elemental characterisation. The method is hitherto limited by the inherently lower maximum count rate of hyperspectral detectors and the chromaticity of the optics often used in x-ray ptychography experiments, namely Fresnel zone plates. In this work, we design an optimized broadband spectroscopic ptychography setup and use it to perform 3D hyperspectral imaging of particles of battery material containing various percentages of nickel, manganese, cobalt (NMC). We show that we can identify different compositions based on their spectral response. We discuss the results and provide guidelines for future exploitation of the method in laboratory settings.
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Jun 2025
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B16-Test Beamline
Detectors
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Diamond Proposal Number(s):
[32397]
Open Access
Abstract: Sensors for particle tracking detectors are required to provide a maximum active area in addition to fulfilling performance criteria concerning radiation hardness, charge collection and operating conditions (e.g. leakage current, depletion voltage and breakdown voltage). While the requirement for optimised coverage within the tracking detector necessitates a slim sensor edge between active region and physical sensor edge, wider edge regions were found to be beneficial for the sensor performance during an early prototyping phase. In order to study the impact of differently sized edge regions, test structures were used to compare their individual active regions. Measurements of each diode were performed using a micro-focused X-ray beam to map its respective active area. This paper presents measurements of these test structures using AREA-X showing that the active area of a silicon particle tracking sensor does not only depend on the size of its bias ring, but also the size and configuration of its edge structure.
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May 2025
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Detectors
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N.
Goyal
,
S.
Aplin
,
A.
Balerna
,
P.
Bell
,
J.
Casas
,
M.
Cascella
,
S.
Chatterji
,
C.
Cohen
,
E.
Collet
,
G.
Dennis
,
P.
Fajardo
,
E. N.
Gimenez
,
H.
Graafsma
,
H.
Hiresmann
,
F. J.
Iguaz
,
K.
Klementiev
,
T.
Kolodziej
,
L.
Manzanillas
,
T.
Martin
,
R. H.
Menk
,
M.
Porro
,
M.
Quispe
,
B.
Schmitt
,
S.
Scully
,
M.
Turcato
,
C.
Ward
,
E.
Welter
Open Access
Abstract: This study presents a detailed simulation-based analysis of the detection limits of multi-element monolithic Germanium (Ge) detectors to cadmium traces in environmental soil samples. Using the capabilities of the Geant4 Monte Carlo toolkit in combination with the Solid State Detector Package, we evaluated the detection limit variation with the sample-to-detector distances and photon flux. These simulations were conducted to mimic realistic conditions, with a photon flux measured by the SAMBA beamline at the SOLEIL synchrotron facility. Our findings for the detection limit for trace amounts of pollutants in low concentrations like cadmium in the soil provide valuable insights for optimizing experimental setups in environmental monitoring and synchrotron-based applications, where precise detection of trace elements is critical.
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May 2025
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