A new macromolecular crystallography Station (9.5) on the SRS wiggler beam line for very rapid Laue and rapidly tunable monochromatic measurements: Commissioning and first results

Abstract

A new instrument (Station 9.5) has been established on the wiggler line at the Daresbury Synchrotron Radiation Source (SRS). It extends the experimental capability at Daresbury for macromolecular crystallography beyond what is provided for with Stations 7.2 (Ref. 1), 9.6 (Ref. 2), and 9.7 by providing a point focused white beam (from a Pt-coated toroid mirror) and/or a rapidly tunable monochromatic beam (using a water-cooled double-crystal monochromator (Ref. 3). The design principles of the new Station 9.5 have been published (Ref. 4). A CCD detector for the station is being developed (preliminary work is described in Ref. 5, or see the additional poster at this meeting) to allow time slices of part of a diffraction pattern to be measured. Laue patterns are currently recorded on film, but access to an image plate detector will shortly become available. Shutter speeds down to 50 μs are routinely available using a rotating disk shutter (Ref. 6). Fluorescence detectors are available for optimized anomalous dispersion data collection. The experimental bench is long enough to accommodate a camera system, and downstream from it an ‘‘on-line’’ image plate scanner. Data collected on the instrument in various modes of operation will be described for a variety of macro and small molecule crystal systems.