The versatile X-ray beamline of the Munich Compact Light Source: design, instrumentation and applications

Abstract

Inverse Compton scattering provides means to generate low-divergence partially coherent quasi-monochromatic, i.e. synchrotron-like, X-ray radiation on a laboratory scale. This enables the transfer of synchrotron techniques into university or industrial environments. Here, the Munich Compact Light Source is presented, which is such a compact synchrotron radiation facility based on an inverse Compton X-ray source (ICS). The recent improvements of the ICS are reported first and then the various experimental techniques which are most suited to the ICS installed at the Technical University of Munich are reviewed. For the latter, a multipurpose X-ray application beamline with two end-stations was designed. The beamline's design and geometry are presented in detail including the different set-ups as well as the available detector options. Application examples of the classes of experiments that can be performed are summarized afterwards. Among them are dynamic in vivo respiratory imaging, propagation-based phase-contrast imaging, grating-based phase-contrast imaging, X-ray microtomography, K-edge subtraction imaging and X-ray spectroscopy. Finally, plans to upgrade the beamline in order to enhance its capabilities are discussed.

Dual-Energy X-ray Medical Imaging with Inverse Compton Sources: A Simulation Study

“…Currently, in Europe, two user facilities are under commissioning: STAR (University of Calabria, Cosenza, Italy) [29,30] and ThomX (LAL, Orsay, France) [31]. Another facility is operational since 2015 at Technical University of Munich, Germany: the Munich Compact Light Source (MuCLS) [32,33]. Also, a source based on high-repetition rate energy-recovery superconductive linac was recently proposed in Italy [34,35].…”

“…In recent years, several preliminary experiments for a proof of principle of ICS sources, including radiographic imaging, were carried out by various research groups [33,[41][42][43].…”

Inverse compton scattering X-ray source for research, industry and medical applications

“…So far, the only ICS source in regular user operation is the Munich Compact Light Source (MuCLS), 3,4 a combination of Lyncean Technologies' commercially available Compact Light Source (CLS) 5 and a beamline with two endstations built by researchers at the Technical University of Munich. 6 The application focus of the MuCLS is biomedical imaging of centimeter-sized samples in the 15-35 keV energy range, well-matched to the beam properties of the first generation Lyncean CLS with ~4 mrad divergence and spectral bandwidth of 3-5%. For a summary of application examples from the MuCLS incl.…”

A Novel Solution for Controlling Hardware Components of Accelerators and Beamlines

“…Two compact X-ray free electron lasers are almost built at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) (Kärtner et al, 2016) and Arizona State University (ASU) (Graves et al, 2017). A mini-synchrotron, the Munich Compact Light Source (MuCLS), operates at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) (Günther et al, 2020), and other developments are underway around the world. This growth in scientific instruments leads to a variety of implemented Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems to control equipment.…”

“…This growth in scientific instruments leads to a variety of implemented Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems to control equipment. Thus, the control of technical components of accelerators at DESY are implemented with the DOOCS (Grygiel et al, 1996) and TINE (Bartkiewicz et al, 2007) control systems, whereas equipment of beamlines are controlled with TANGO (Götz et al, 2003), KARABO (Hauf et al, 2019) or EPICS (Dalesio et al, 1994). Such diversity of SCADA systems requires development of complicated communication protocols when synchronization and communication between different technical components is needed, especially in the facilities where multiple SCADA systems are used.…”