EMBL@PETRA IIIBeamlines
MX1 Beamline
On P13/MX1, the first diffraction experiments have been performed in December 2011. The beamline is currently under commissioning.
The specifications of the MX beamlines at PETRA-III are largely governed by the challenges of certain research directions: biological crystallographic experiments require an intense and very stable X-ray beam, tunable in energy, with small and adjustable focus, and low divergence.
The end-station will be automated to a level that minimises (and eliminates wherever possible) the need for user intervention. The X-ray beam has to be conditioned by various sets of slits and attenuators and observed by a series of viewers and beam position monitors. It utilises radiation of a 2m-long section of canted undulator from the last straight section (section 9) of the PETRA-III storage ring.
The most important parameters for this end-station are the wavelength range (5-35 keV) and the narrow band pass (ΔE/E < 2 • 10-4) over the whole wavelength range. The focus does not have to be exceptionally small, although there will be a possibility to achieve a focus size of the order of microns. The specific requirements for the detector are good DQE over the entire energy range and a sufficient size to cope with the larger scattering angles at both lower X-ray energies and in high-resolution measurements.
Contact
Michele Cianci
Project Leader
Tel: +49 (0) 40 89902-118
Email: m.cianci@embl-hamburg.de
Proposed experimental capabilities
Our aim is to provide adequate facilities that can cope with the most demanding requirements:
- High brilliance coupled with small focus size to allow measurements on extremely small crystals (in the range of a few µm), structures of large biological assemblies (up to the MDa range) and crystals with long unit cell dimensions.
- To provide the experimental conditions for measurements and structure determination at extremely high resolution.
- To allow adaptations in order to meet specific demands (lighting, data collection temperature, use of lasers, and so on).
- State-of-the-art tunability in terms of a broad energy range, energy band pass and excellent beam stability to provide opportunities for carrying out a variety of experimental phasing methods that are available, under development or planned.
- A high degree of automation, user-friendliness and parallelism that will allow high-throughput structure determination, notably in the fields of structural proteomics and drug-discovery oriented structural biology.
- An experimental environment to allow time-resolved measurements matched to the time structure of the PETRA-III ring with the intention of revealing the dynamics of biological processes.