The status of the macromolecular crystallography beamlines at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility

Abstract

The European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) is the oldest and most powerful 3rd generation synchrotron in Europe, providing X-rays to more than 40 experimental stations welcoming several thousand researchers per year. A major success story has been the ESRF's facilities for macromolecular crystallography (MX). These are grouped around 3 straight sections: On ID23 canted undulators accommodate ID23-1, a mini-focus tuneable energy end station and ID23-2, the world's first micro-focus beamline dedicated to MX; ID29 houses a single, mini-focus, tuneable energy end station; ID30 will provide three end stations for MX due in operation from mid-2014 to early 2015. Here, one branch of a canted X-ray source feeds two fixed-energy end stations (MASSIF-1, MASSIF-3). The second feeds ID30B, a variable focus, tuneable energy beamline. MASSIF-1 is optimised for automatic high-throughput experiments requiring a relatively large beam size at the sample position, MASSIF-3 is a high-intensity, micro-focus facility designed to complement ID23-2. All end stations are highly automated, equipped with sample mounting robots and large area, fast-readout photon-counting detectors. Experiment control and tracking is achieved via a combination of the MXCuBE2 graphical user interface and the ISPyB database, the former allowing user-friendly control of all beamline components, the latter providing data tracking before, after and during experiments.