Australian Facilities at the Advanced Photon Source

The Advanced Photon Source (APS) is a 7 GeV third generation synchrotron light source constructed by the US Department of Energy at the Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago, USA, at a cost of about $US 470 million. It offers synchrotron X-ray beams thousands of times brighter than the second generation Photon Factory, and will be the premier US synchrotron radiation facility well into the next century.

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Australian Access

All experimental beamline facilities at the APS are being funded and constructed by "Collaborative Access Teams" (CATs). A CAT is allocated one or more "sectors" of the APS, comprising a bending magnet and an insertion device (undulator or wiggler) beamline.

As part of the ASRP, Australia has joined two such CATs, the Synchrotron Radiation Instrumentation (SRI) CAT and the Consortium for Advanced Radiation Sources (CARS) CAT. These two CATS were chosen to provide guaranteed access to a broad range of state-of-the-art synchrotron radiation research facilities for Australian science.

SRI-CAT

The SRI-CAT is developing three sectors of the APS, and will operate 11 experimental stations on 5 insertion device and two bending magnet beamlines. SRI-CAT is the Argonne/APS facility CAT. Its principal goals are:

• To develop and diagnose insertion devices, high heat load optics, and other novel X-ray optical components and to develop innovative techniques that will provide a baseline of operations for the entire community of APS CATs.
• To develop and implement strategic instrumentation programs that will open up new areas of research at the APS.

Via the ASRP, Australia is now a developer member of the SRI-CAT.

The capabilities of the SRI-CAT beamlines are:

• A 1 and 0.1 micron spot size beam for micro-analysis, diffraction and spectroscopy
• Time-resolved scattering and spectroscopy (XAFS)
• a 1-4 keV radiation source for coherent X-rays
• High resolution high flux soft X-ray spectroscopy
• A milli-electron volt resolution beamline
• A micro-to-nano-electron volt resolution instrument to perform nuclear resonant scattering experiments
• A selectable polarisation beam (linear and circular) for polarisation dependent scattering, eg magnetic scattering
• A high energy beam (up to 200 keV)

The Consortium for Advanced Radiation Sources (CARS)

CARS is also developing three sectors of the APS, organised along disciplinary lines. CARS is sub-divided into BioCARS, Geo/SoilEnviroCARS and ChemMatCARS, each of which is developing a single sector. Australia , via the ASRP, is an Institutional member of CARS, with guaranteed access to the BioCARS and ChemMatCARS beamline facilities. Other Institutional members are the University of Chicago (the CARS Managing Agent), Northern Illinois University and Southern Illinois University.

BioCARS

The goal of BioCARS is to promote the understanding of basic biological processes in structural terms. To this end, BioCARS will provide state-of-the-art beamline facilities for X-ray crystallographic studies of biological molecules, eg proteins, and viruses on one insertion device and two bending magnet beamlines. The specific BioCARS capabilities include:

• Protein crystallography from micro-crystals and large unit cell proteins/macro-molecules
• Protein crystallography using Multiple wavelength Anomalous Dispersion (MAD)
• Virus crystallography
• Time resolved Laue protein crystallography

ChemMatCARS

In ChemMatCARS, research will focus on aspects of dynamic and structural condensed matter and materials chemistry research, including surface and interface properties of soft condensed matter and liquids, interfacial and bulk properties of novel polymers and composites and the structure and properties of molecular aggregates and semiconductors in microporous, layered and glassy materials.

Initially, ChemMatCARS will construct and operate one insertion device beamline with three experimental stations. A bending magnet beamline will be built in a second phase.

The Phase I capabilities are:

• Surface X-ray Scattering and diffraction
• Small and ultra-small angle X-ray scattering
• High resolution crystallography, including time resolved and multi-wavelength capabilities

For further information, E-mail Richard Garrett (ASRP Facility Scientific Manager)

Image: Aerial view of the Advanced Photon Source, courtesy APS, Argonne National Laboratory

Document details: Original Web document. Author and contact Dr R Garrett

This page was last updated on 4 February, 2004