Fourth-generation X-ray sources: some possible applications to biology

Abstract

The term 'fourth generation X-ray sources' has come to mean X-ray free-electron lasers which use multi-GeV electron beams from linear accelerators to generate X-rays by self-amplified stimulated emission when fired into long undulators. Properties of the radiation expected from such sources are reviewed briefly and two possible applications of the resulting pulsed highly collimated X-radiation to problems in biology are discussed: use of X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy to measure time correlations of atoms in protein crystals, and use of Mössbauer radiation extracted from the photon beams by resonant Bragg diffraction from (57)Fe-containing crystals, for MAD phasing of very large unit-cell biomolecular crystals and possibly for photon echo measurements.