MICRODIFFRACTION AT THE NE-CAT BEAMLINES

Cornell University, Ithaca NY

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Abstract

This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. Primary support for the subproject and the subproject's principal investigator may have been provided by other sources, including other NIH sources. The Total Cost listed for the subproject likely represents the estimated amount of Center infrastructure utilized by the subproject, not direct funding provided by the NCRR grant to the subproject or subproject staff. Due to increasing demand from our user community to be able carry out diffraction experiments with crystals smaller than 20-30 microns, during early 2007 the Resource implemented a microdiffraction facility at the 24-ID-E beamline. With that, we were able to deliver stable X-ray beams as small as 5 microns, which can be tailored to dimensions of the samples in order to reduce scattering contamination and backgrounds. This operating installation resulted in meeting one of our major Core 1 goals of providing the first such microdiffraction facility in the US. Also, this has resulted in some unique structures, which otherwise would not have been possible. The microdiffraction experiments at 24-ID-E beam-line were so successful and popular that our user community wanted us to replicate the exact same capability on our tunable beamline 24-ID-C as well. With the support of our core collaborators and HHMI investigators (S.C. Harrison, D. Eisenberg and E. Gouaux), we were able to secure funding (equipment grant to SCH) for a second MD2 for installation on 24-ID-C. During early 2009, 24-ID-C was outfitted with an MD2, similar to the one on 24-ID-E. While the first year of Core 1 research was spent on set-up, commissioning and user operations, during the second year we concentrated on developing methods for practical use of microdiffraction and enhancement of the microdiffraction capability.