Speaker
Description
SoftiMAX is a soft X-ray spectro-microscopy beamline at MAX IV Laboratory, the Swedish national synchrotron center in Lund, Sweden. It is situated at the 3 GeV ring at MAX IV and provides a very high average coherent flux owing to the low emittance properties of the ring1,2.
SoftiMAX consists of two branch lines utilizing different focusing solutions and catering to various imaging methods. The main branch, in user operation since 2021, hosts an end-station optimized for scanning techniques such as Scanning Transmission X-ray Microscopy (STXM) and diffraction imaging such as ptychography3.
Here we report on the design and commissioning of the second branch of the beamline SoftiMAX-CXI, which hosts a dedicated end-station for X-ray Photon Correlation Spectroscopy (XPCS), and diffraction and scattering experiments with a flexible detector geometry.
SoftiMAX-CXI, which started commissioning in 2024 and has since been part of our user program as an open port, operates over an X-ray photon energy range of 275 eV to 2200 eV with full polarization control above 400 eV. This branch line has a Kirkpatrick-Baez mirror pair to focus the beam to a size down to about 20 µm. External end-stations have been used for XPCS measurements and Fourier Transform Holography of magnetic thin films, and for developing a TIMEPIX imaging detector for the soft X-ray regime.
The commissioning of the main CXI end-station has started. It is built around a rotatable detector arm that can accommodate sample-detector distances of at least 2m over 120-degree scattering angles. This makes the CXI end-station suitable for XPCS, scattering, diffraction experiments, and measurements in reflection.
