Ambient-pressure endstation of the Versatile Soft X-ray (VerSoX) beamline at Diamond Light Source

The ambient-pressure endstation and branchline of the Versatile Soft X-ray (VerSoX) beamline B07 at Diamond Light Source serves a very diverse user community studying heterogeneous catalysts, pharmaceuticals and biomaterials under realistic conditions, liquids and ices, and novel electronic, photonic and battery materials. The instrument facilitates studies of the near-surface chemical composition, electronic and geometric structure of a variety of samples using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and near-edge X-ray absorption fine-structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy in the photon energy range from 170   eV to 2800   eV. The beamline provides a resolving power h ν / Δ (h ν )> 5000 at a photon flux> 1010   photons   s − 1 over most of its energy range. By operating the optical elements in a low-pressure oxygen atmosphere, carbon contamination can be almost completely eliminated, which makes the beamline particularly suitable for carbon K-edge NEXAFS. The endstation can be operated at pressures up to 100   mbar, whereby XPS can be routinely performed up to 30   mbar. A selection of typical data demonstrates the capability of the instrument to analyse details of the surface composition of solid samples under ambient-pressure conditions using XPS and NEXAFS. In addition, it offers a convenient way of analysing the gas phase through X-ray absorption spectroscopy. Short XPS spectra can be measured at a time scale of tens of seconds. The shortest data acquisition ti...

Source: Journal of Synchrotron Radiation - August 16, 2020 Category: Physics Authors: Held, G. Venturini, F. Grinter, D.C. Ferrer, P. Arrigo, R. Deacon, L. Quevedo Garzon, W. Roy, K. Large, A. Stephens, C. Watts, A. Larkin, P. Hand, M. Wang, H. Pratt, L. Mudd, J.J. Richardson, T. Patel, S. Hillman, M. Scott, S. Tags: soft X-ray beamline ambient-pressure XPS X-ray absorption catalysis carbon contamination research papers Source Type: research