Photon Science at Modern Light Sources

摘要

More than 50 large x-ray and UV light sources based on high-energy electron accelerators are in operation around the world, serving a scientific community numbering in the tens of thousands. These sources generate synchrotron radiation from accelerated electrons or positrons. The development of synchrotron light sources over the last 40 years has fueled an exponential increase in x-ray source brightness of more than 10 orders of magnitude. The next large advance in source potential is now underway, with the commissioning of the first x-ray Free-Electron Laser (FEL) sources. Using high-energy electron linear accelerators, these facilities produce sub-picosecond pulses of hard x-rays with peak brightness more than 10 orders of magnitude greater than current synchrotron facilities. FEL x-ray facilities will soon be operational in the US, Japan, and Germany.Research at modern light sources makes use of a wide range of experimental techniques. Many experiments are designed to study the structure of matter at the atomic scale using elastic x-ray scattering. This technique has been particularly effective for determining the structures of biological molecules, such as proteins, viruses, and drugs. Inelastic x-ray scattering, or x-ray absorption followed by emission of electrons or photons, can give information about the electronic structures of atoms, which can be used to deduce local environment information such as atomic species, bonding state, geometry of neighboring atoms, or magnetic state. For some techniques involving x-ray emission from a sample, cryogenic detectors with energy resolution at the –10 eV level or better would be very helpful. Shifts in electron energy levels associated with bonding states and magnetic states are typically several eV, while the energy structure associated with Compton inelastic scattering is typically in the range of a few tens of eV. Current energy-resolving detectors used at synchrotron light sources are hampered by either poor energy resolution (-100 eV for solid state detectors), or very poor angular acceptance (10~(-3) sr or worse for grating and crystal analyzer detectors).Photon detectors at synchrotron light sources can be presented with very high signal count rates. At the new FEL sources, this issue will be especially acute, since each sub-picosecond pulse will deliver the flux produced in one second by a synchrotron. This invites the use of multiple small detectors to spread the load. The ideal energy-resolving detector for x-ray science at modern light sources would combine eV-level energy resolution, 100-gm pixel size, and a low per-pixel cost allowing several megapixels to be deployed.