9/10/2012 - Medium and High energy gratings ready and showing good performance with beam
The summer grating reinstallation work and monochromator chamber
bakeout has been succesfully accomplished. BOREAS team has done a
beamline realignment for all gratings and mirror combinations, and test
them with beam in the last 2 weeks.
As highlights:
- operating with MEG and HEG gratings, the beamline delivers
significant photon flux and excellent energy resolution at mid to high
energies in the range 0.8 to 3.0 keV (details here)
- the beamline can now properly work at rather unusual energies and
absorption edges for a soft x-ray beamline, as demonstrated by
benchmark absorption spectra at the Al K-edge around 1560 eV and Ru L2,3
edges at about 2.8 and 2.9 keV (details here).
1/10/2012 - Delivery of VG-Scienta "C6" modified cryo-manipulator for the scattering endstation
The awaited cryomanipulator and loadlock system for the scattering
endstation has finally been received at ALBA premises. Site acceptance
tests are under preparation for late October, which include the checking
of the multiaxis motion (XYZ, tilt, azimuth and polar), the liquid
helium cooled base temperature operation (about 18K), the UHV vacuum
performance. Heating stage and sample transfers will also be checked.
18/09/2012 - Preparing for commissioning of Medium and High energy gratings with beam
The bakeout of BOREAS monochromator has been accomplished, and we are preparing the beamline to take beam again and to commission the reinstalled MEG and HEG gratings with beam (starting next Friday).
30/07/2012 - Preparing for monochromator "endless" summer bakeout, summer electrical maintenance
We are preparing the bakeout of BOREAS monochromator (an eight ton steel monster) with the assistance of L. Gines from the vacuum group. A 5 week or so long bakeout will be launched after the summer electrical maintenances. Acknowledgement to engineering (C. Colldelram and others) for coordination and assistance.
27/07/2012 - Factory tests of VG-Scienta "C6" modified cryo-manipulator for the scattering endstation
The factory tests for the awaited cryomanipulator and loadlock system for the scattering endstation have been finished at VG's UK factory: we are in the process of evaluating the results, which show that the multiaxes cryomanipulator achieves a sample temperature of 18.8 K. Delivery is expected early September.
25/07/2012 - Cabling campaign
An extensive cabling campaign is on-going to do final cabling for Hector magnet, removing temporary cabling, improving the setup for detection electronics and organizing racks cabling. The results are apparent and user working space has improved considerably. Acknowledgement to electronics team, notably X. Farina, S. Astorga, J. Pages, B. Salo, A. Ruz and T. Camps), and to E. Criado and S. Forcat
16-25/07/2012 - Monochromator intervention & Toyama visit
The imminent start of the summer shutdown was the optimum date for the intervention in the monochromator, to re-install the Medium and High Energy gratings. Diagnosis by bl staff lead by former bl scientist A. Barla was confirmed: the gratings needed to be reoriented (you were correct Alessandro!), which is very good news because the alternative could have been something wrong with them. The intervention was the opportunity to solve a small collision involving the zero order baffle and review optical encoders of monochromator pitch.
A big thanks to Toyama specialists Masa Yamaguchi and Jun Nakagawa, for their skillful work.
Acknowledment extensive as well to various ALBA staff: remarkably, the hardwork by Josep Nicolas to warrant optimized performances of grating optical mount with more than 20 iterations; collaboration by J. Moldes and O. Matilla on the analysis of optical encoders.
10/07/2012 - Commissioning of control updates and in-house collaboration
Commissioning of new undulator control, updated monochromator energy control, use of 3rd harmonic and partial polarization conditions for XMCD studies at mid energies were undertaken in a practical approach: a collaboration study of Dy M4,5 resonances (approx. 1300 eV) in magnetically extra-hard amorphous RE-TM thin films (coll: C. Quiros, C. Blanco, J. Diaz and the condensed matter group at Oviedo University).
Data was very encouraging and the updated control makes things a lot easier and better!. (Ack. to J. Moldes, F. Becheri, J. Marcos, A. Barla, and J. Nicolas among others)
1/07/2012 - A third user team, S. Agrestini and co-workers from Dresden Max Planck Institute has visited BOREAS for performing official user experiments on various nanoscale magnetic oxyde thin films
7/06/2012 - The HTS magnet for the scattering endstation (MaReS) has passed the site acceptance tests
The main tests for this beauty of a magnet have been performed. See here a photo for this magnet that will be placed in-situ at the heart of the scattering endstation (here)
7/06/2012 - Second part of user experiment, E. Solano and co-workers from Unidad de Quimica Inorganica (UAB) and Grupo de superconductividad from ICMAB(CSIC)
The user team is doing this week the second part of its fractioned beamtime, studying some YBCO thin films with embeded nanoparticles.
6/06/2012 - Practicals of UAB synchrotron-radiation master students at BOREAS
The students of the master spent the afternoon acquiring some experience at an x-ray beamline and performing soft x-ray absorption spectroscopy measurements in iron oxide thin films and nanoparticles.
31/05/2012 - User experience at BOREAS and with Hector high field magnet, variable temperature insert
The user team of Marti Gitch and co-workers from ICMAB and CIN are doing a study of some iron oxide based nanoparticle systems, using Hector high-field magnet endstation.
The beamline and specially the control are behaving reasonably well, and last upgrades seem to have been productive. Remarkably, now the control and endstation performance, and the beam and accelerator stability allow to have a macro stable measuring data even for a full night shift.
Regarding the variable temperature insert, the experiment and user experience is clearly showing that work remains to be done for enhancing the easiness and effectiveness of the cryostat use for the stabilization of mid temperatures over a long time (more than two or three hours), and specially on views for running on automatic mode (macros) for hours or overnight. This was known and it is a demanding fine tuning that "touches" or interfere with some limitations of the equipment (noise on refill of Helium, etc...). This is one of the prioritary tasks that we are expecting to work on during the next months.
21/05/2012 - User experiment
The beamline is waiting to receive its second user team mid week.
9/05/2012 - Boreas first user experiment !
The standard proposal 'Ferrite magnetic nanoparticles and hybrid superconducting layers: a XMCD spectroscopic study', granted with 18 shifts, started running experiments at ALBA on May 7th, 2012. The data quality is very encouraging on the beamline performance for XAS, XMCD measurements (link under preparation), confirming the impressions of some other preliminary measurements during the commissioning phase. There are certainly many remaining problems and a number of things to improve, but this is certainly a good start!.
April 2012 - HECTOR endstation commissioning, recapitulation of basic bl commissioning
In spite of some remaining commissioning task and beamline optic interventions foreseen for Summer 2012, the beamline seems operative for experiments using the low energy grating and the high-field vector magnet endstation (total electron yield detection). The high-field vector magnet endstation has been tested for quite some time during this month and proved to perform well.
January to March 2012 - Basic beamline optics commissioning accomplished
The alignment and basic commissioning of the beamline optics has been performed by BOREAS staff with the invaluable assistance of Dr. Alessandro Barla (former bl scientist and responsible for the beamline optics concept).
16/12/2011
The first XMCD spectrum has been measured at the Fe L2,3 edges and is shown here
28/10/2011
This week we have been optimizing the focal spot of the beam reflected by PM and TM onto the entrance slit, with some (partial) success
20/10/2011
After the first 24 hours with x-ray beam (eight hours per day) the first rough alignment of the beamline is completed and the beam reaches the gas cell, the last element available under UHV (some pictures of the beam are available here). The first XAS test spectra have been measured. Next week the commissioning will continue with the fine alignment of the PM/TM mirrors and the focusing of the beam onto the entrance slit of the monochromator
18/10/2011
The commissioning with x-ray beam has started
14/10/2011
The control cabin is fully installed and furnished
23/9/2011
The HECTOR (High-field vECTOR-magnet) end-station for XMCD-XMLD has been installed and tested (some pictures are available here).
