XRD1 and its Users
The XRD1 beamline was among the first to become operational at Elettra and has been recently upgraded after more than ten years of function. Proposals requesting beamtime at XRD1 are submitted to the Elettra Proposal Review Panel for evaluation from heterogeneous group of researchers affiliated with national and international research centers and universities. The beamline is also actively involved in collaborations with industrial partners.
The beamline offers a high degree of automation and repetitive measurements can be easily customized via a user-friendly scripting system. An automatic sample changer with a capability of 50 samples is available both for cryogenic (single crystal, small and macromolecules) and non-cryogenic (powders in capillary) samples, based on SPINE standard. The beamline offers, in parallel to diffraction, fluorescence and some spectral characterization of the specimen.
Users submitting a proposal for the first time are warmly invited to browse our publications, in order develop a clear view on the typical applications of our setup and its capabilities.
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Research Fields
The beamline exploits the higher part of the spectrum (above 17 keV) for molecular structure resolution of small natural or synthetic molecules, supramolecular and self-assembly, metal organic framework systems. The available k goniometer suits these measurements allowing the sample proper (re)orientation, critical for low-symmetry specimens.
The mid part of the spectrum (8-17 keV) is widely used to tackle matter phase transitions in function of thermodynamic variables (e.g. temperature), photo-excitation, or presence of specific molecules (gas or humidity). Drug polymorphism, fibers, nanoparticles, technological materials and cultural heritage measurements are usually performed in this energy range. In these cases the large area, fast technology of the single photon counting Pilatus detector opens to time evolution of the systems as well as the presence of preferred orientations in the specimen micro-structure.
The lower energy part of the spectrum (below 10 keV) is used for grazing incidence diffraction experiments, exploiting in particular the availability of a k-goniometer allowing a rotation of the sample to provide all diffraction signals both in plane and out of plane in case of preferred orientation or fully ordered systems.
This part of the spectrum is also used for macromolecular crystallography, where the enhancement of the anomalous signal of several light atoms of relevant biological importance (e.g. Ca, Cl, Mg, K) give the opportunity to not mistake their signals with water as well as to exploit them for phasing (e.g. S, P).
Selected examples of XRD1 applications can be found in our Highlights section.
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Browse our Publications
Read our Highlights
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