End-stations
The beamline will have two permanent x-ray end-stations and a Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM, in collaboration with the ICN, Catalan Institue of Nanotechnology). All three end-stations will be connected under ultra-high-vacuum (UHV), thus potentially allowing for experiments to be performed on the same sample in all three chambers.
Dichroism end-station
The dichroism end-station consists of a UHV-compatible cryomagnet, which is currently being produced by Scientific Magnetics. The system is equipped with three orthogonal superconducting coils allowing for maximum fields of 6 T (in the horizontal plane along the beam direction, with a sweep rate of 2 T/minute) and 2 T (in the horizontal plane perpendicular to the x-ray beam and in the vertical plane, with a sweep rate of 0.6 T/minute). Simultaneous operation of the three coils will allow one to cover a sphere of 2 T, with a sweep rate of 0.4 T/minute. The sample will be in a UHV environment (with a base pressure of the order of 10^-10 mbar) and mounted on a sample holder attached to the cold finger of a cryostat, with temperatures variable between approximately 2 K and 350 K. The sample is electrically insulated in order to perform drain current measurements. Moreover, four electrical contacts are provided on the sample holder for any type of 4-probe measurements. A special sample holder will be permanently equipped with a Hall probe (and will be limited to 300 K), for applications requiring precise knowledge of the field (or of the remnant field of the superconducting coils). A second special sample holder will be permanently equipped with a Cernox temperature sensor.
The system is equipped with a 3-chamber sample preparation/insertion set-up (load-lock, buffer, main). The load-lock chamber will allow for fast sample change at ambient pressure and will reach high vacuum in a few minutes. The buffer chamber ensures a smooth transition from the high vacuum of the load-lock to the UHV of the main preparation chamber and is equipped with a parking for up to four samples. The main chamber, below the centre of the magnet, will initially be equipped only with basic sample preparation tools, like a cleaver and a scraper, but provision for evaporator flanges is ensured already in the current design. This chamber will be connected in UHV with the scattering end-station and with the STM.
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