Loading
ALBA Synchrotron
en
The year 2024 has been very exciting for FaXToR and its scientists. It has been announced in February that FaXToR has seen its first photons, produced by an in-vacuum multipole wiggler, on the fluorescence screen monitor located in the Optic Hutch (OH).
The following months have been dedicated to the commissioning of the optical elements, including the main components which is a Double Multilayer Monochromator (DMM).
At the right, example of low energy (10 keV) monochromatic beam captured by the FSM.
Summer has been really interesting: the team guided by Alessandra Patera has finally seen X-rays with the detection system located in the experimental hutch (EH) and has provided the first tomographic acquisition for commissioning purpose but also to a number of friendly users that have expressed already a strong interest to work with FaXToR and explore its capabilities.
The detection system used for these applications consists of a triple magnification microscope (hosting objectives with 2x, 5x and 10x magnification) – designed and commissioned by Optique Peter (the team is grateful for the important support received by the French supplier), – combined with the PCO.Edge 4.2 camera which presents a nominal pixel size of 6.5 um.
First X-rays in EH: 26 June 2024
The scientific staff (Alessandra Patera, Federico Cova and Victorien Bouffetier), with the support team composed by mechanical, electronic, survey, control engineers and management.
First data collection on a wood sample with asbestos particles: 3 July 2024. The sample comes from a place nearby Torino, Piedmont region, in Italy, where an Eternit company dedicated to asbestos disposal works is located. This dataset was acquired with monochromatic beam at 20 keV and a pixel size of 3.25um and finally, reconstructed with the phase retrieval filtering.
FaXToR team will be now busy with the commissioning of the beamline and will dedicate the incoming months to friendly users. In particular, one of the first data collection was focused on preclinical applications: a cirrhotic rat liver sample has been acquired locally to demonstrate the capability of the beamline in this field.
At the right, liver sample dataset was acquired with monochromatic beam at 20 keV energy and pixel size of 1.3 um. Collaboration with the Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Hospital Clínic de Barcelona.
FaXToR hosts also a second detection system and different cameras to provide simultaneously high spatial and high temporal resolutions. Details in the technical specifications.