SwissFEL Cristallina Experimental Station
Cristallina is the third experimental station of the SwissFEL ARAMIS hard X-ray beamline. It serves both quantum science (Cristallina-Q) and structural biology (Cristallina-MX), enabling the imaging of quantum many-body states under extreme conditions and serial femtosecond protein crystallography, respectively.
The Cristallina beamline is designed to operate in both pink and monochromatic beam modes, and provide variable beam size at the sample position down to a spot smaller than 2 micrometer with optimally focused beam thanks to bendable KB-mirrors. The beamline is operational in pink beam mode, and will be upgraded in with a monochromator to enable experiments requiring reduced bandwidth in 2025.
The Cristallina-MX instrumentation currently includes a setup for fixed-target protein crystallography, which is currently in the pilot phase and will be offered to regular users in 2024. The instrument is operated by the Cristallina-MX team with the support of the Macromolecular Crystallography (MX) group.
The Cristallina-Q instrumentation includes two setups installed on two diffractometers that provide high-field and low-temperature capabilities, which are currently in the commissioning phase. These instruments are operated by the Cristallina-Q team within the Quantum Photon Science (QPS) group and in strong collaboration with the Laboratory for Quantum Matter Research (LQMR) of Prof. Johan Chang at the University of Zurich (UZH). The latter consortium is partially funded by UZH, SNSF and PSI via the R’Equip scheme.
The experimental station is conceived for reshuffling the instruments between the experiment position on the X-ray beam and the dedicated preparation areas, sliding the equipment over a granite floor by means of airpads.
