Beamline Jockey Days - Challenges in Imaging

25 Jun 2024, 09:00 → 26 Jun 2024, 13:40 Europe/Berlin

Hereon seminarroom, Building 94, O1.140 (Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon outstation at DESY)

After the first beamline jockey days in Hamburg in 2018, the beamline jockey community has met every year at different European synchrotron facilities. This year, the Hereon Imaging team is very happy to welcome you again at the DESY campus in Hamburg for the next Beamline Jockey Days.

The event is free of charge. The objective of this workshop is to create transparency about how the different beamlines tackle their individual challenges - with Efficiency optimizations at beamlines being this years topic.

Beamline life can be stressful, and (beam)time is precious. Therefore, we all 
found ways to make our daily work easier. This can for example be workflow
optimization, automated alignment procedures, efficient motor movements, 
specific user applications and manuals, or a sample changing robot. The goal 
of this workshop is to exchange our little tips and tricks, discuss common 
problems to learn from each other. 

To stimulate a fruitful exchange, we would like the speakers to not feel to have to “show off” their instruments but to present them with a focus on challenges, difficulties and solutions. It goes without saying that, in order for this to happen, the workshop must provide confidentiality which is why presentation slides and discussion notes will only be made available to others upon explicit approval of the individual speakers.

Campus Map

List of Hotels

Program_BJD

Tuesday 25 June

12:30 → 13:30 Get together and light lunch: Welcome and arrival of participants

13:30 → 13:40 Session: Welcome

13:40 → 15:00 Session: Session 1

13:40 Realization of an end-to-end automated data acquisition pipeline for the beamline SYRMEP at the Elettra synchrotron facility

The microtomography beamline SYRMEP at Elettra, the Italian Synchrotron in Trieste, is preparing to face a substantial increment in the acquisition rate, due to the upcoming upgrade of the facility. To effectively exploit such improvement, data acquisition and processing are being integrated into a single automated pipeline, with as few user interactions as possible. Images will be transferred automatically to a processing server which will perform tomographic reconstructions dynamically, allowing users to select optimal reconstruction parameters. Reconstructed volumes will be available on a fast storage server for analysis and post-processing. Both interactions will be accessed through VUO, the Elettra unified portal.

Speaker: Adriano Contillo (Elettra - Sincrotrone Trieste)

14:20 Efficient use of beamtime: The ”Shock” Beamtime Allocation Group at beamline ID19 of the ESRF

4th generation high-energy synchrotron photon sources offer unprecedented capabilities of probing matter during transient dynamics at high spatio-temporal scales using hard X-rays. The combination of high brilliance, short bunch duration (down to 100 ps) and high-energy of the extremely brilliant source at ESRF-EBS opens the door of studying materials under extreme events of shock and high-strain rate combined to in-situ subsurface ultra-high speed X-ray radioscopy measurements at relevant scales. The recent establishment of new access modes, such as beamline allocation groups (BAG), aim at building a collaborative community and providing regular access to the shared pool of cutting-edge installations. The so-called ”Shock” BAG brings together experts in shock physics and dynamic behaviour of materials, building upon the recently installed instrumentation such as Split-Hopkinson Pressure bar (SHPB), single stage gas luncher, 850 mJ bs-pulsed laser shock and pulsed power-driver as well as a chamber compatible with energetic materials which allow studying matter under a plethora of extreme scenarios. Frequently, these setups are intensive for installation and alignment and hence, do not allow for efficientuse during a single beamtime campaign. The BAG access mode allows to gather the relevant community for a given experimental setup, targeted preparation of samples and environments which drastically improves efficiency at the beamline while for the user community it gives regular access to beamtime.

Speaker: Alexander Rack (European SYnchrotron Radiation Facility)

15:00 → 15:20 Coffee break

15:20 → 16:40 Session: Session 2

15:20 Efficency optimation at ANATOMIX

At the ANATOMIX beamline we optimize for good tomographies in terms of image quality (dynamic range, resolution), low dose (efficient optics and absorbing scintillator), and fast scan speed (less than 15 min). A samples changer is available for many samples (36 samples). The tomography setup is often readapted to the user samples needs (magnification, beam energy).

Speaker: Mario Scheel (Synchrotron Soleil)

16:00 Efficiency optimisations at the Diamond imaging Beamline I13-2

We currently progress the automation of the I13-2 Imaging beamline to increase the scientific output, while reducing the workload on the staff. During the COVID period, we installed an automated sample changer system (robot arm), which in principle allows us operating the beamline without the presence of users and to scan more than a hundred samples per shift. Most importantly the sample centring is also automated when running with sample changer robot, giving full automation capability in this mode. At the moment, the most challenging aspect of using sample changer robot is preparation of sample to the requirements of the sample gripper. In case of beamline preparation for any experiment, a semi-automated beamline alignment procedure is being used, which is labour intensive. We are implementing more efficient alignment and calibration procedures. We mostly depend on the help of the support teams for the automation projects at the beamline and in achieving our goals.

Another important step is the automated data analyses. The SAVU reconstruction pipeline with a python wrapper system works very well when users need quick and basic reconstructions. In the near future HTTomo software- a Python package providing user interface is being developed, especially for the bigger data in larger quantities. This is envisioned as a reconstruction pipeline for researchers with limited background in micro-tomography.

We care about the optimisation of photon efficiency of all beamline components. The detectors require constant attention to ensure preserving their efficiency. The browning of the detector lenses is a major challenge. The de-browning of the objectives requires to take them off to put them in a UV box, and a distortion correction pattern needs to be measured and calculated when changing/re-focusing of the objectives. Most recently we installed a CRL system to collimate the X-ray beam, which will be mostly used to adapt the beam-size to the condenser diameter of the full-field X-ray microscope (TXM) and to the sample size when performing micro-tomography. This is important when zooming into single features of the sample.

We firmly believe that the automation and optimization of each of the processes will improve the quantity, quality as well as the ease of use of the beamline.

Speaker: Shashidhara Marathe (Diamond Light Source)

16:40 → 17:00 Coffee break

17:00 → 17:40 Session: Session 3

17:40 → 18:20 Beamline Visit

P05 nano- and microtomography, P07 high energy micro tomography

19:00 → 21:00 Dinner

Wednesday 26 June

09:00 → 10:20 Session

10:20 → 10:40 Coffee break

10:40 → 12:00 Session: Discussion

12:00 → 12:20 Session: Final Discussion

12:20 → 13:20 Get together and light lunch: Goodby with light lunch and discussions