|
Designed to record bursts of images at an unprecedented speed of 4.5 million frames per second, a new and innovative X-ray camera is being built using the engineering expertise of the Science and Technology Facilities Council. The work being undertaken by the council, which has a broad science portfolio and focuses on areas such as materials science, space and ground-based astronomy technologies, laser science, microelectronics, and wafer scale manufacturing, will help a major new research facility shed light on the structure of matter.
The device will be delivered to the European XFEL (X-ray Free-Electron Laser) next year and will contribute to both drug discovery and other vital research once the facility starts operating in 2015.
The continuation of the £3 million prototype collaboration contract for the camera’s construction was confirmed and given the go-ahead following a visit to STFC by a delegation from the European XFEL’s Detector Advisory Committee.
The decision to entrust construction of this crucial piece of equipment to STFC recognises the organisation’s outstanding capabilities in advanced microelectronics and the design of high-tech imaging devices (e.g. for the Large Hadron Collider at CERN).
Now under construction near Hamburg in Northern Germany, the European XFEL is a 2-mile-long facility that will use superconducting accelerator technology to accelerate electrons which then generate X-ray flashes a billion times brighter than those produced by conventional X-ray sources. Each flash will last less than one hundred million billionth of a second. With the properties of laser light, these short, intense flashes will, for example, make it possible to take three-dimensional X-ray images of single molecules.
Current leading-edge X-ray cameras are designed to capture images when matter is bombarded by a constant beam of X-rays. But the extreme brevity and intensity of the flashes produced by the European XFEL means such cameras will not be suitable for use at the new facility.
STFC’s new device, which is being built in collaboration with University of Glasgow, is specifically designed to work in conjunction with hyper-short, hyper-brilliant X-ray flashes. It will be installed in one of the first experimental end stations incorporated in the European XFEL.
The device will help ensure that the European XFEL provides a unique opportunity for science and industry to understand matter and its behaviour, mapping the atomic details of viruses, for instance, or pinpointing the molecular composition of individual cells.
Dr Tim Nicholls of STFC says: “We’re delighted that the European XFEL has turned to STFC to build this pioneering camera. It demonstrates how the UK can provide the high-tech excellence that world markets need, leading to scientific advances that make a real difference to people’s lives.”
