Rapid sample delivery for megahertz serial crystallography at X-ray FELs
Category
Published on
Type
journal-article
Author
Max O. Wiedorn and Salah Awel and Andrew J. Morgan and Kartik Ayyer and Yaroslav Gevorkov and Holger Fleckenstein and Nils Roth and Luigi Adriano and Richard Bean and Kenneth R. Beyerlein and Joe Chen and Jesse Coe and Francisco Cruz-Mazo and Tomas Ekeberg and Rita Graceffa and Michael Heymann and Daniel A. Horke and Juraj Knoška and Valerio Mariani and Reza Nazari and Dominik Oberthür and Amit K. Samanta and Raymond G. Sierra and Claudiu A. Stan and Oleksandr Yefanov and Dimitrios Rompotis and Jonathan Correa and Benjamin Erk and Rolf Treusch and Joachim Schulz and Brenda G. Hogue and Alfonso M. Gañán-Calvo and Petra Fromme and Jochen Küpper and Andrei V. Rode and Saša Bajt and Richard A. Kirian and Henry N. Chapman
Citation
Wiedorn, M.O. et al., 2018. Rapid sample delivery for megahertz serial crystallography at X-ray FELs. IUCrJ, 5(5). Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/s2052252518008369.
Abstract
Liquid microjets are a common means of delivering protein crystals to the focus of X-ray free-electron lasers (FELs) for serial femtosecond crystallography measurements. The high X-ray intensity in the focus initiates an explosion of the microjet and sample. With the advent of X-ray FELs with megahertz rates, the typical velocities of these jets must be increased significantly in order to replenish the damaged material in time for the subsequent measurement with the next X-ray pulse. This work reports the results of a megahertz serial diffraction experiment at the FLASH FEL facility using 4.3 nm radiation. The operation of gas-dynamic nozzles that produce liquid microjets with velocities greater than 80 m s−1 was demonstrated. Furthermore, this article provides optical images of X-ray-induced explosions together with Bragg diffraction from protein microcrystals exposed to trains of X-ray pulses repeating at rates of up to 4.5 MHz. The results indicate the feasibility for megahertz serial crystallography measurements with hard X-rays and give guidance for the design of such experiments.
DOI
Funding
NSF-STC Biology with X-ray Lasers (NSF-1231306)