On June 25th 2025, S-TOMCAT beamline shutters were opened to receive first X-ray light from the new SLS 2.0 storage ring. On day 2 (June 26th), full white X-ray beam generated with a 400 mA ring current was brought into the experimental hutch with all beamline shutters open. The beam path glowed purple due to the ionization of air by the X-ray beam (Figure 1). On day 3, June 27th, this milestone was marked by taking a first X-ray tomographic image of a 3D printed S-TOMCAT First Light coin (Figure 2). The TOMCAT beamline crew are all smiles for this milestone in the TOMCAT 2.0 upgrade project (Figure 3).
White X-ray beam in the S-TOMCAT experimental hutch glowing purple due to ionization of air.
First X-ray tomographic image taken at S-TOMCAT. The object was a 3D printed plastic coin. Filtered white X-ray beam was used with an X-ray detector with 6.5 um pixel size.