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Xmas16pagesbis#4 25/04/06 15:36 Page 1 XMaS NEWSLETTER Xmas16pagesbis#4 25/04/06 15:36 Page 2 contents StatusStatusStatus he year 2005 ended with the operational capabilities of the the long-awaited delivery system, before offering this to our of the 4T magnet, user community. User meeting just before Christmas. 3 Delivery would have A further item reported under occurred sooner but for Instrumental Developments, on page Ta hiccup following first assembly and 5, is the projected orbit-plane test of the magnet. This revealed a monitor. This has been craftily Instrumental thermal shortcircuit to the welded designed to fit into a space upstream 4 developements stainless containment vessel which had of the monochromator, currently to be disassembled in order to correct occupied by a bellows assembly. the fault. Understandably, this introduced Unforeseen in the original design of a delay of several weeks. But the good the beamline, it has been necessary Some recent news is that the problem was solved, to contemplate retrofitting this 6 experiments the magnet functions magnificently and device because of unanticipated is already in use on the beamline – beam movements, the lack of a unique facility given the field/angular- sensitivity of the existing upstream access capability. More details are given monitor and the particular sensitivity In-house in the article, under Instrumental that phase plate set-ups have to 13 research Developments, on page 4. quite small beam movements. The diamond phase plate flipper This will be the last newsletter project has made progress since the before we submit an application for report in the article in the previous renewed funding beyond the current News Newsletter. We have now run a trial contract, due to end in September 14 round-up of a prototype flipper assembly, 2007. It is, thus, very important for provided by the Functional Materials us to be able to present the best and Group at the NPL, together with the most comprehensive publication list necessary electronics, some for all who have used the XMaS purchased and much loaned. This beamline. So, to assist us present Guidelines first trial yielded much to encourage the best case for continuation, would for applying for us and is more fully reported, also you check that Sandra Beaufoy at under instrumental developments, on Warwick has the most up-to-date beam-time at the page 4. We have scheduled a full test information about your publications 15 XMaS beamline experiment in the current scheduling and, of course, expedite any you may period, in order to understand better have still in preparation. ■ 2 XMaS Xmas16pagesbis#4 25/04/06 15:36 Page 3 USER MEETINGS Top: Ben Fowler from Liverpool holding his prize in front of his winning poster. The ESRF Bottom: Tom Hase in front of the winning poster from Durham in the ESRF’s user meeting poster competition. The object in Tom’s hand is not thought to in February be the prize awarded by the ESRF! and XMaS in May he annual XMaS Users’ Meeting was held in the Department of Physics at the University of T Warwick on Thursday 26th May 2005. The meeting attracted approximately 40 participants representing 13 UK institutions, including a sizeable Liverpool contingent who the previous evening had been celebrating the success of the football team in winning the European Cup (aka Champions League)! After a welcome by Malcolm Cooper, the meeting began with presentations by the beamline staff covering beamline operation (David), development of the piezoelectric polarisation flipper (Laurence), advances in the software for the MAR detector (Danny) and a range of other technical development projects (Paul). Three scientific presentations completed the morning session; Tom Beale (Durham) described charge orbiting and orbital ordering in bilayer mangenites, Paul Strange (Keele) described the theory of resonant x-ray scattering and finally Danny Mannix (XMaS) presented recent measurements of magnetic order in CeLaB6 compounds. After an excellent lunch and a viewing of the posters, the scientific presentations continued with Emyr Macdonald describing the use of the MAR detector for studying semiconducting polymers. Jon Goff (Liverpool) presented a combined x-ray and neutron study of magnetic nanoparticle assemblies and Tom Hase (Durham) continued the nanoparticle theme, describing measurements of the x-ray scattering from magnetic nanodot arrays. Finally Steve Collins (DIAMOND) presented an amusing comparison between Diamond and the ESRF and demonstrated how the Materials and Magnetism beamline at DIAMOND (I16) will complement the XMaS beamline in the future. The meeting concluded with a brief discussion of the next XMaS grant application during which it was noted that both the quality and diversity of the science that is being performed on the beamline continue to grow. The poster prize went to Ben Fowler (Liverpool) for his work on the effects of temperature on the atomic structure at the electrochemical interface. ■ NEWSLETTER 2005 3 Xmas16pagesbis#4 25/04/06 15:36 Page 4 INSTRUMENTAL DEVELOPMENTS The 4 Tesla magnet incident and reflected x-ray beams. This included the The magnet has at last been delivered, arriving on the supply of a plastic replica model at an early stage to beamline just before Christmas after acceptance avoid expensive errors later. Figure 1 shows the tests at the manufacturer’s site in Tennessee. It was magnet installed on our Huber diffractometer with the demonstrated that the magnet could achieve a field field transverse to the x-ray beam. As explained in of 4.4 Tesla before quenching, thus the design goal of our 2003 issue of the Newsletter, the magnet can also 4.0 Tesla is adequately met and this will be the be mounted with the field vertical and also co-axial operational maximum field. with the beam – all these orientations have been verified. The rated field of the magnet at an operating temperature of 4.2 K is 4 Tesla, with a homogeneity Earlier last year we took delivery of its companion of +/-1 % in a 1 cm diameter sphere at an approxi- sample cryostat. This small-aspect variable mate operating current of 80 Amperes. Great care temperature insert is based around a commercial two- had been taken during this programme to ensure the stage displex, capable of reaching 10K. A third stage, magnet would fit into the diffractometer without developed by the cryogenics group at the ILL, in interference and allowing maximum access for Grenoble, has been added. This novel device is 4 capable of operating down to ~2K using He gas and may be operated over a wide range of angles without degradation of the base temperature. It is envisaged that the cryostat will achieve a temperature of ~1K 3 when used with He gas. At the time of writing the magnet/cryostat combination has been used for two user experiments, in addition to the experiments reported by team members on pages 12 and 13 of this issue, and we have others scheduled in the current period. We look forward to including highlights of these and other experiments performed with the magnet in the next issue of the Newsletter. Diamond phase plate flipper The XMaS beamline is now capable of rapidly switching the polarisation of the x-ray beam transmitted by the diamond phase plate from left to right circular. This has been made possible thanks to the work undertaken by the NPL’s Functional Materials Group who designed a novel piezo driven device capable of reversing the photon helicity at up to 150 Hz. The prototype, Figure 1, uses two pairs of multilayer piezoelectric stacks mounted on opposite sides of, and coupled to, an aluminium plate through two weak links. They are driven in opposite directions to provide an angular Figure 1: The 4T magnet installed on the XMaS displacement of up to 350 arc seconds. The Huber diffractometer. compact assembly allows easy mounting on the phase plate Huber 410 circle. The diamond is attached to a small copper goniometer which screws directly into the aluminium plate. The performance of the flipper was tested under real conditions by measuring the XMCD signal of a GdCo2 foil at the L2 edge of gadolinium. A sinusoidal function generator was used to drive the piezoelectric stacks in phase quadrature and to provide a reference signal to a lock-in amplifier. The diamond was rotated at 10 Hz. The incident and transmitted intensities were measured with ionisation chambers and the resulting currents were amplified and converted to voltages. A log divider normalised the intensity from the sample to that transmitted from the diamond. The resultant signal was then fed to the lock-in amplifier. The dichroic signal was then Figure 2: Close-up showing the bespoke 2K cryostat measured from the lock-in output synchronized to between the coils of the 4T magnet. the flipping of the helicity. 4 XMaS Xmas16pagesbis#4 25/04/06 15:36 Page 5 Figure 1: The prototype flipper assembly. The diamond phase plate is the yellow crystal at the top of the picture. Figure 2: XMCD measurements performed on a GdCo2 foil at the Gd L2 edge with the flipper (red curve) and the standard method (blue curve). Figure 2 shows the XMCD signal measured with the the primary slits and the monochromator. It consists flipper (red curve) and compared to that measured of a motorised water-cooled copper block, which can with the standard method (blue curve) with the same be driven to intercept and scatter the beam counting time. As expected, the signal to noise ratio horizontally through 90º and the intensity monitored is considerably lower using the lock-in detection. with a photodiode. It will also be possible to drive a Although the lock-in worked reasonably well when a range of attenuators into the beam which can assist dichroic signal was present, we observed that it future studies on monochromator heat-load for the struggled to “lock-in” away from the edge.