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Station Scientist

Fariba Bahrami

email:email f.bahrami@dl.ac.uk
Telephone:phone+44(0)1925 603755
Fax: fax+44(0)1925 603123

Station Telephone

Telephone:phone +44(0)1925 603303
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STATION 11.1
Infrared Microspectroscopy

Description

This station is dedicated to mid infrared microspectroscopy. The advantages of using synchrotron radiation for high spatial resolution spectroscopy have led to developments of similar facilities at many synchrotrons worldwide. The Daresbury beamline can undertake measurements in transmission or reflection mode, and is also equipped with a mapping stage for collecting 2D "maps". In addition a Side Port Accessory is available for the study of large objects.

News

Ancient Helmet Studied Using Synchrotron IR
IR11 with side port and 6th Century B.C. Corinthian helmet
Beamline 11 has recently been used to perform microanalysis of corrosion products on the surface of a 6th Century B.C. Corinthian helmet. The helmet showed evidence of ancient damage and more recent attempts at repair. The use of a side port reflection accessory allowed infrared reflection measurements to be made, adding to the data obtained by Surface XRD and Neutron Scattering.
« click image for larger picture


Daresbury IR Group Awarded Detector Development Funding
 The IR group at Daresbury Laboratory, in conjunction with the Instrumentation Department Detector Group, have been awarded £247k to develop the latest generation of high speed IR array detectors specifically for use on the synchrotron beamline at Daresbury. It is expected that the resulting instrumentation will be of great use at other synchrotrons, including Diamond.

Functional Description

The performance of beamline 11.1 is achieved by focusing the bright synchrotron beam to an 8 x 8 micron point. A small area, high detectivity MCT detector allows spectra to be collected the region of 750 cm-1 to 4000 cm-1.
The station is suitable for the study of a wide range of materials including:

Samples can be mounted in several differnt ways, including:

Technical Description

Beamline 11.1 accepts 30 x 30 milliradians of bending magnet radiation from the SRS. A cooled focusing mirror refocuses the beam 1:1, and the beam is reflected upwards through the synchrotron shield roof. The beam passes through a KRS5 vacuum exit window and into the secondary optics system. This system employs a choice of three different focal length mirrors to provide a highly collimated IR beam matched to the beamline experiment. The collimated beam is directed into a Nicolet Nexus FTIR spectrometer coupled to a Nicolet Continuum IR microscope fitted with 32x objective, mapping stage, and 50 micron high D* detector.

Development

The recently installed 50 micron detector from Thermo Nicolet has significantly improved performance of the beamline. The detector element is now more closely matched to the dimensions of the focused SR beam.

A high quality video microscope is now available for users to collect visible light micrographs of their samples.

Registered users will now have access to multivariate data analysis software. Two packages, Pirouette (Infometrics Inc) and Cytospec (specifically for IR imaging) are now available on site in the IR data analysis room.

Proposed Development

A second IR microscope will soon be brought to Daresbury for testing with SR light. The Perkin Elmer "Spotlight" uses a 16 element linear array detector with high-speed direct readout to achieve fast data collection of large area maps. This system will initially be tested on beamline 13.3

A high pressure diamond anvil cell will be commissioned on the beamline within the next year. This will allow users to study minerals at geological pressures, and to understand the behaviour of biological molecules under pressure.

Benchmarks

The performance of 11.1 is routinely assessed prior to user beamtime. Typical performance, based on noise present in a 100% transmission spectrum, generated from two sequential single beam spectra, is given below:

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