Technique
Macromolecuar Crystallography (MX)
ALBA Synchrotron
en
XAIRA is a microfocus beamline dedicated to challenging Macromolecular Crystallography (MX) experiments and novel techniques.
The beamline provides a stable micron-sized beam of 3 x 1 µm2 FWHM at 1 Å, which can also be further reduced down to 1 x 1 µm2 or enlarged to meet the experiment needs.
The beamline is designed to support microcrystallography experiments on micron-sized crystals, needles and plates, as well as fixed-target serial crystallography experiments. A long in-vacuum undulator and an innovative dual mode Si channel-cut/multilayer monochromator provides a high flux at 1 Å for the serial data collection experiments. XAIRA is also designed to have an energy range with the low energy limit extending down to 4 keV to take advantage of the anomalous signal, enhanced in small crystals, of naturally-occurring metals for native phasing experiments. The sample environment and the detector is placed in a He atmosphere in order to reduce the background of the diffraction images in the whole energy range and maximize the flux at low energies.
Technical Specifications
Beam size at sample position | 1×1 µm2 to 15×10 µm2 |
Photon energy range | 4 to 14 keV |
Energy resolution | ΔE/E = 2·10-4 (with channel-cut monochromator) and 1·10-2 (with multilayer monochromator) |
Flux at sample | 3.5·1012 ph/s (at 1 Å beam, 250 mA current and channel cut monochromator) >1013 ph/s (with Mo/B4C multilayer monochromator) |
This beamline has been co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund of the European Union.