[en] The last few years have seen an increase in the demand of automation at synchrotron radiation facilities. The main driving forces behind this quest are the Structural Genomics Centers and related projects, with their need for large throughput of samples and an increasing number of relatively unskilled users with ever increasing demands. In order to meet the needs of this diverse community, the structure determination process must be streamlined. A production pipeline for high volume determination of structures requires optimization and automation of current processes in use at synchrotron facilities. The ultimate goal is to arrive at a system that, with little more input than a sample, will provide the researcher with the final molecular structure

[en] The X6A facility at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) is a dedicated macromolecular crystallography beam line funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. The facility serves expert and non-expert crystallographers from protein purification to the determination of atomic coordinates. The X6A facility consists of an experimental station and an associated laboratory for sample preparation. The X6A beam line optics include an NSLS design Si(111) channel-cut monochromator and an Oxford Danfysik toroidal focusing mirror. The end station consists of a CrystalLogic Kappa diffractometer and an ADSC 210 CCD detector. Standard crystallographic packages are available to assist the users for data analysis. An automated sample changer will be added in the near future to the end station. The associated laboratory is fully equipped for all aspects of protein purification and crystallization. The beam line is currently available for users (http://protein.nsls.bnl.gov). The main goal of the X6A effort is to provide the basic tools to researchers who would like to use macromolecular crystallography and structural biology to address important biological questions

[en] X-ray Active Matrix Pixel Sensors (XAMPS) were designed and fabricated at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Devices based on J-FET technology were produced on 100 mm high-resistivity silicon, typically 400 μm-thick. The prototypes are square matrices with n rows and n columns with n = 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512. Each pixel of the matrix is 90 x 90 μm² and contains a JFET switch to control the charge readout. The XAMPS is a position sensitive ionization detector made on high resistivity silicon. It consists of a pixel array detector with integrated switches. Pixels are isolated from each other by a potential barrier and the device is fully depleted by applying a high voltage bias to the junction on the entrance window of the sensor. The small features of the design presented some technological challenges fully addressed during this production. The first prototypes were tested at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) with a monochromatic beam of 8 keV and millisecond readout and exhibit good performances at room temperature.

[en] We describe a concept for X-ray optics to feed a pair of macromolecular crystallography (MX) beamlines, which view canted undulator radiation sources in the same storage ring straight section. It can be deployed at NSLS-II and at other low-emittance third-generation synchrotron radiation sources where canted undulators are permitted, and makes the most of these sources and beamline floor space, even when the horizontal angle between the two canted undulator emissions is as little as 1-2 mrad. The concept adopts the beam-separation principles employed at the 23-ID (GM/CA-CAT) beamlines at the Advanced Photon Source (APS), wherein tandem horizontally deflecting mirrors separate one undulator beam from the other, following monochromatization by a double-crystal monochromator. The scheme described here would, in contrast, deliver the two tunable monochromatic undulator beams to separate endstations that address rather different and somewhat complementary purposes, with further beam conditioning imposed as required. A downstream micro-focusing beamline would employ dual-stage focusing for work at the micron scale and, unique to this design, switch to single-stage focusing for larger beams. On the other hand, the upstream, more highly automated beamline would only employ single-stage focusing.