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Tomsk Polytechnic University Designs Station for SKIF

21 March 2023
09:48
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Tomsk Polytechnic University Designs Station for SKIF

Tomsk Polytechnic University, together with its partners, has completed the first stage of the project to construct one of the Siberian Ring Source of Photons (SKIF) stations, the Microfocus station. They will be working on the system design until November 2023. The construction is planned to be completed in the summer of 2024, in order to complete its installation and commissioning in the SKIF experimental hall by the end of 2024.

The Microfocus station is the first in the project internal numbering and the third SKIF station to be launched. Due to an advanced X-ray beam focusing system it will make it possible to study microobjects up to 200 nanometers in size. The intended use will be X-ray microscopy and microtomography combined with high-resolution scanning X-ray fluorescence analysis and structural studies of crystals under high pressures. The total weight of the prospective unit is more than 120 tons, while its estimated cost is more than 1 billion rubles.

At this point, we have completed the conceptual design stage for the future station, including the creation of a 3D model of the unit with all scientific equipment, enclosing structures, and utilities. The next stage will be the design engineering and construction of each part of the station, as well as the development of control software,

says Aleksey Gogolev, director of the TPU Research School of High-Energy Physics.
The station project is carried out by the team consisting of the Research and Educational Center for Advanced Research of Tomsk Polytechnic University, Novosibirsk State Technical University, Institute for Physics of Microstructures of RAS, and Sobolev Institute of Geology and Mineralogy of the Siberian Branch of RAS. Tomsk Polytechnic University acts as an integrator. The design engineering work is distributed among the partners. For instance, a mirror monochromator will be manufactured in Nizhny Novgorod, part of a sample environment system and a crystal monochromator will be manufactured in Novosibirsk, and so on.

The TPU team is responsible for a number of engineering and research areas. Firstly, the creation of enclosing structures and engineering networks. This is a complicated and quite challenging part of the project, because it is required to ensure record-breaking thermal stabilization of the future structure. Secondly, we are responsible for radiography, tomography, diffractometry, and other systems. We will also create our in-house beam imaging system, simply put, a high-resolution X-ray camera. The station will be commissioned using this system, and in the future it can be used in high-resolution X-ray imaging,

adds Aleksey Gogolev.

One of the most important parts of the project, carried out by the research team from Tomsk Polytechnic University, is software development as part of the station automation system as a whole. In particular, synchronization and integration of individual items of equipment with each other, development of scanning protocols, creation of additional software modules for different station modes, to name but a few.

According to the scientists, each part of the station will be automated, along with the supply of control applications that will be integrated into a unified system.

At Tomsk Polytechnic university, the work will be carried out by the Division for Science and four schools, including the university branch in Yurga.

Reference

The shared-use center Siberian Ring Source of Photons of the Institute of Catalysis of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences is a megascience project with a generation 4+ synchrotron. The Center is a complex of 34 buildings and facilities, as well as engineering and technological equipment, intended for research projects based on synchrotron radiation beams.

The unique characteristics of the new synchrotron will allow for advanced research using bright and intense X-ray beams in a number of fields, such as chemistry, physics, materials science, biology, geology, and the humanities. SKIF will also be applicable in solving challenging tasks of innovative and industrial enterprises.

The Siberian Ring Source of Photons is being created as part of the national project Science and Universities aiming to develop a modern domestic network of next-generation synchrotron radiation sources in Russia.