A beamline for high-pressure studies at the Advanced Light Source with a superconducting bending magnet as the source

A new facility for high-pressure diffraction and spectroscopy using diamond anvil high-pressure cells has been built at the Advanced Light Source on Beamline 12.2.2. This beamline benefits from the hard X-radiation generated by a 6 Tesla superconducting bending magnet (superbend). Useful x-ray flux is available between 5 keV and 35 keV. The radiation is transferred from the superbend to the experimental enclosure by the brightness preserving optics of the beamline. These optics are comprised of: a plane parabola collimating mirror (M1), followed by a Kohzu monochromator vessel with a Si(111) crystals (E/{Delta}E {approx} 7000) and a W/B{sub 4}C multilayer (E/{Delta}E {approx} 100), and then a toroidal focusing mirror (M2) with variable focusing distance. The experimental enclosure contains an automated beam positioning system, a set of slits, ion chambers, the sample positioning goniometry and area detectors (CCD or image-plate detector). Future developments aim at the installation of a second end station dedicated for in situ laser-heating on one hand and a dedicated high-pressure single-crystal station, applying both monochromatic as well as polychromatic techniques.