New Beamlines

These new instruments will be crucial to make Spanish and European science progress at its core possibilities, enabling new innovative approaches and promoting new industrial and interdisciplinary applications.

Instruments' layout after ALBA II

Two nanoprobe long beamlines: CODI and CORUS

Nanoprobe beamlines are among the most advanced synchrotron beamlines. They are aimed at delivering high-resolution and multi-modal characterization of materials at the nanoscale.

ALBA is hosting two of these beamlines in ALBA II. They will be 200-250 meters long, exceeding the current building and arriving to new adjacent buildings placed in the plots next to ALBA.

They will be key for elemental mapping, structural analysis, chemical speciation or strain/stress distribution, with clear benefits like unprecedented high spatial resolution and 3D imaging, the combination of several techniques in a single beamline to enable multimodal and correlative analysis, the in situ and operando capabilities and ultra-sensitive detection limits.

Nanoprobe beamlines offer better spatial resolution at large working distance. See simulation at the left.

Positions of Beamline responsible of CODI and CORUS are currently open

BL02-CODI

Example of application.

3D reconstruction and Evolution of strain in a Pt nanoparticle as varying electrode potential. Useful for the design of strain-engineered nano-catalysts. From C. Atlan, et al. Nat. Mater. 23, (2023)

Hard X-ray nanoprobe beamline devoted to Coherent Diffraction Imaging techniques, for in operando studies in materials science.

10-30 keV energy range
30-50 nm spot size
Length: 200 m
Scientific scope: Advanced energy materials, electronic devices with focus on beyond-CMOS, but also composites and engineering materials.
Techniques: nano diffraction, nano fluorescence, ptychography.
Complex sample environment instrumentation, like cryostats, laser heating, gas cells, electrochemistry cells, etc.

Beamline ProposalDownload

BL04-CORUS

Example of application.

Determination of intra-cellular location of Ir in breast cancer cells. Imaging at nm-resolution with chemical sensitivity. From Conesa et al. Angew Chem Int Ed Engl 2020, 59 (3), 1270-1278.

The new cryo-nano-bioimaging beamline

This ~250m long beamline will offer new imaging capabilities at nanoscale level and in close-to-native conditions. CORUS will enable the structural characterization and chemical mapping of complex biological systems, diseases and environmental challenges in close to native conditions, at cryogenic and room temperatures, by providing a nanometric X-ray probe scanned on mm-sized sample volumes.

CORUS will host two end-stations:

NanoImag will offer phase-contrast tomography at 20-nm resolution in volumes of up to 1mm³ to reveal the ultrastructure of isolated cells, organoids or biological soft tissues as well as cryo-nano-fluorescence for 2D and 3D imaging and quantification of drugs, contaminants and other endogenous or exogenous trace elements at ppm sensitivity in whole cells or tissue sections. The high flux (over 10¹¹ ph/s at 27 keV at sample), the sample environment setup and a fast detector will enable large scanned volumes in a reasonable time frame.
NanoSpec will elucidate and map the chemical state of all relevant intracellular elements by providing a 50-nm, fully tunable beam in the 4-27 keV range, with a narrow and variable energy bandwidth. The beamline will be coupled to advanced sample preparation methods and correlative techniques available in other instruments (e.g. cryo 3D-SIM, cryo-ET, FTIR).

It will be one of the first nanoimaging beamline with a built-in cryogenic system, and aims at new frontiers of integrative structural biology such as ultrastructure of biological soft tissues in large volumes, study of neuronal circuits at the nanoscale, biomineralization, performance and degradation of engineered metal-based drugs or nanoparticle delivery vehicles, mode of action of drugs and their toxicity, biochemical functions maintaining cellular homeostasis regulated by the oxidation state of trace-level metals, toxicology of metals and micro-/nano-materials, and bioremediation, among others.

The beamline has to initiate soon the detailed conceptual design.

Positions of Beamline responsible is currently open

10-27 keV energy range
20-50 nm spot size
Length: 250 m
Scientific scope: complex biological systems, diseases and environmental challenges by providing an efficient cryogenic and room temperature nanoprobe to gain structural, chemical and elemental knowledge in close-to-native conditions.
Techniques: 3D-nano X-ray fluorescence, X-ray absorption near edge strucuture (XANES), scanning transmission X-ray Microscopy (STXM), holo-tomography full-field.

Beamline ProposalDownload

Two additional beamlines

ALBA II will also include two additional beamlines to complement the current available techniques.

BL07-CALIMA

CALIMA will provide a platform for small angle X-ray scattering (BioSAXS) experiments, a technique central in the integrative approach of structural biology due to an easy sample preparation, wide range of applications, and a resolution range between the atomic and the organelle levels. The conformation of isolated macromolecules and complexes in solution found by BioSAXS can be combined with structural studies at atomic resolution (MX, cryo-EM-SPA, NMR, mass spectrometry, computational methods), as well as with studies on focusing on the structure of the intracellular context or the localization of macromolecules (cryo-ET, FRET).

CALIMA will allow fully automated high-throughput screening, and batch experiments with a variety of data acquisition modes and coupled techniques (nLC/MS, SEC/IEC).
The beamline will be fed by a superbend source and will deliver a highly parallel beam of ~500m beam size at sample in the 6-17 keV energy range.
Spatially resolved 3D-scanning SAXS to a resolution of ~10 m will also be available through removeable focusing optics and scanning stages.
Time-resolved studies down to the micro-second time scale will be enabled by the high flux from the superbend source, the advanced sample delivery and sample activation methods, and the availability of high frame rate detectors, These studies will reveal the evolution of macromolecules and macromolecular complexes during oligomerization, assembly or folding, as well as their structural changes in response to physical (e.g. temperature, pressure) and chemical (pH variation, ionic strength, denaturants) stimuli.
The end-station will also be compatible with dynamical studies on polymers and nanostructured materials.
CALIMA will be fully integrated with the program and techniques of the existing and new instruments on Life Sciences at ALBA-II: macromolecular crystallography (XALOC, XAIRA), electron microscopy (cryo-EM-01) and IR spectromicroscopy (MIRAS),

The beamline has to initiate soon the detailed conceptual design.

Beamline ProposalDownload

BL33-MSPD2

The upgraded beamline devoted to materials science and high-resolution powder diffraction at ALBA.

10-40 KeV energy range
Scientific scope: chemical and structural composition for a broad panel of surface science like batteries, catalysis, electrocatalysis, corrosion, sensors, atmospheric chemistry, nitrogen fixation, 2D material fabrication, tribology, and more.
Techniques: two experimental stations, including a high-pressure powder diffraction station, with a smaller beam at the sample, and higher reciprocal space resolution, and the high-resolution powder diffraction station, upgraded with new detectors, and improved sample environment.

Modification date: 05/07/2025