The MX beamlines BL14.1-3 at BESSY II

Martin Gerlach,Manfred S Weiss,Uwe Mueller

doi:10.17815/jlsrf-2-64

Abstract

The Macromolecular Crystallography (MX) group at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) is operating three state-of-the-art synchrotron beamlines for MX at BESSY II in Berlin (Heinemann et al., 2003; Mueller et al., 2012, 2015). The radiation source for all three beamlines BL14.1-3 is a superconducting 7T-wavelength shifter. Currently, the three beam lines are the most productive stations for MX in Germany, with about 250 PDB depositions per year and over 1500 PDB depositions in total (Status 10/2015). BL14.1 and BL14.2 are energy tuneable in the range 5.5-15.5 keV, while beam line BL14.3 is a fixed-energy side station operated at 13.8 keV. The HZB-MX beamlines are in regular user operation providing close to 200 beam days per year and about 600 user shifts to approximately 100 research groups across Europe. Additional user facilities include office space adjacent to the beam lines, a sample preparation laboratory, a biology laboratory (safety level 1) and high-end computing resources.

Highlights

BL14.1. is a tuneable energy beamline dedicated to MX (Fig 1)
Rapid data collection experiments are possible with the PILATUS 6M pixeldetector (DECTRIS, Switzerland)
BL14.2. is a tuneable energy beamline dedicated to MX (Fig. 2)

Summary

Introduction

BL14.1. is a tuneable energy beamline dedicated to MX (Fig 1). The beamline is highly automated and users can access the whole energy range without assistance by beamline sta. The endstation features an MD2 microdi ractometer with a very small sphere-of-confusion of 1 μm This setup can support X-ray di raction experiments of small crystals down to 15 μm in size. Rapid data collection experiments are possible with the PILATUS 6M pixeldetector (DECTRIS, Switzerland). At this station the whole range of MX experiments is possible, from rapid crystal screening to MAD data collection and long-wavelength applications. Just like on BL14.1 (see previous paragraph) the whole energy range is accessible. This beamline has just undergone a complete upgrade. Rapid data collection experiments are possible with the PILATUS3S 2M pixel-detector (DECTRIS, Switzerland). A specialty of this beamline is the possibility to carry out crystal dehydration experiments using an HC1c crystal humidity controller (Arinax, France) (Bowler et al, 2015)

Instrument applications

Optical Design

Technical Data