NSLS-II Biomedical Beamlines for Macromolecular Crystallography, FMX and AMX, and for X-ray Scattering, LIX: Current Developments

M R Fuchs,W A Hendrickson,O Chubar,L Yang,D K Schneider,R M Sweet,L E Berman,N Canestrari,M Idir

doi:10.1088/1742-6596/493/1/012021

Abstract

We present the current status of development of the two macromolecular crystallography (MX) beamlines, FMX and AMX, and the X-ray scattering beamline LIX, at the National Synchrotron Light Source-II (NSLS-II) [1]. Together, FMX and AMX will cover a broad range of use cases from serial crystallography on micron sized crystals, to very large unit cell complexes, to rapid sample screening, e.g. for the always-hard-to-grow membrane proteins and for ligand binding studies. The LIX beamline will support a variety of X-ray scattering measurements for studies on proteins in solution, lipid membranes and biological tissues. We have performed Synchrotron Radiation Workshop (SRW) [2] and Shadow[3] simulations to help select optimal methods to modify the size of the beam easily and smoothly at both FMX and AMX. The very low emittance of the NSLS-II storage ring and the resulting low divergence of the X-ray beam, as well as the long optical path lengths in the photon delivery systems lead to stringent requirements e.g. for vibrational stability and mirror quality. We discuss beamline design considerations addressing these challenges, such as combining mirror optics with compound refractive lenses (CRLs).

Highlights

IntroductionThe FMX beamline, for Frontier Microfocusing Macromolecular Crystallography, will deliver a high photon flux of 1013 ph/s at a wavelength of 1 Å into a spot of 1 μm width
Funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy, the suite of AdvancedBeamlines for Biological Investigations with X-rays (ABBIX) is scheduled to begin open user operation by 2016
The compound refractive lenses (CRLs) transfocator is mounted on a long travel linear stage to provide variable demagnification and to compensate for the X-ray energy-dependence of the CRL focal length

Summary

Introduction

The FMX beamline, for Frontier Microfocusing Macromolecular Crystallography, will deliver a high photon flux of 1013 ph/s at a wavelength of 1 Å into a spot of 1 μm width. It will cover a broad energy range of 5 – 30 keV, corresponding to wavelengths from 0.4 – 2.5 Å. The AMX beamline, for Highly Automated Macromolecular Crystallography, will be optimized for high throughput applications, with beam sizes from 4 – 100 μm and an energy range of 5 – 18 keV (0.7 – 2.5 Å). Equipped with a single long undulator (IVU23), it will produce beams down to a size of ~1 μm via a two stage demagnification scheme, involving

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Findings

Conclusion