Speaker
Description
In serial femtosecond crystallography (SFX), high sample consumption is a major hurdle to wider adoption, therefore method development has focused on lowering sample consumption. This is particularly important at high repetition X-ray free-electron laser sources such as the European XFEL, where fresh crystals must be delivered into the beam at MHz frequencies. Until now, high repetition rate sample delivery has mostly used fast thin liquid jets produced by gas-dynamic virtual nozzles. The majority of crystals in jets are delivered between XFEL pulses and are therefore wasted.
Fixed targets offer a sample delivery method with lower sample consumption, as crystals are immobilised on a surface so are not lost between pulses, but their use has so far been limited to lower repetition rates due to the limited speed of linear motion stages. Here we present a novel disc-shaped sample holder which spins at high speeds to enable high repetition rate, low sample consumption SFX at the SPB/SFX instrument of the European XFEL. This vacuum-compatible device sandwiches crystals embedded in viscous medium between two thin films on a 120 mm diameter disc, and has been used for successful data collection and structure solution.
