PHOTON SCIENCE

The in-house Test Facility EH1 consists of versatile set-ups for general testing, detector cali¬bration and “minor experiments”. This can be done while experiments in the preferentially served main beam are running (absorption by the SBM crystals is negligible). EH1 is in high demand for quick access test experiments of all kinds and also serves an educational purpose by offering student tutorials. In practice there can always be found a gap position for an optimized main beam experiment which leads only to minor intensity reduction for the parallel beam use in EH1.

Experimental Hutch EH3 satisfies the engineering community with its demand for handling large and heavy samples (turbine blades, motor blocks) or sample environments (welding and fatigue-loading machines, furnaces, cryostats). Due to the key property of hard x-rays, i.e. a large penetration length, this community can methodically profit from previous experience in neutron scattering. The much higher photon brilliance at HEMS, however, facilitates in-situ investigations of structural transformations during manufacturing processes. The work-horse is a custom built hexa-pod from PI for heavy load of 1 t with positioning resolution of +/- 1 μm (travel ranges tens of cm, tilt angles 15^o) in combination with an in-house built detector portal for various 2D-detectors (mar345 image plate, PE XRD 1621), see photo.

In the last Experimental Hutch EH4 two specialized instruments share space (accessible via a temperatur lock room): a 3D-XRD microscope for grain and strain mapping of polycrystalline materials – its principle analogous to the pioneering work of H.F. Poulssen [Three-Dimensional X-Ray Diffraction Microscopy, Berlin, Springer, 2004], and a dedicated micro-tomography set-up (nearly) identical to the one at the Imaging Beamline IBL/P05 which operates in the complementary energy range 5-50 keV. All stations use rotary air-bearing stages with a wobble of sub-microradians. The location and separate climatisation allows a stable focus down below 1 micron.

FlexiDS sample environment was funded by the BMBF projects 05K16VK5 and 05K16NMA "FlexiDS: Probenumgebungen für in-situ Photonenbeugung zur Aufklärung der Phasen- und Mikrostrukturbildung während der gerichteten Erstarrung neuer metallischer und intermetallischer Materialien. Teilprojekt 1 & 2. (Karlsruher Institut für Technologie & Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg). The sample environment can be used at EH3 in collaboration with the project institutions.
For more information see the related publication.