Diamond Light Source

Diamond Light Source Logo

Diamond Light Source is the UK's national synchrotron science facility located in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom. Its purpose is to produce intense beams of light whose special characteristics are useful in many areas of scientific research. In particular it can be used to investigate the structure and properties of a wide range of materials from proteins (to provide information for designing new and better drugs), and engineering components (such as a fan blade from an aero-engine^[1]) to conservation of archeological artfacts (for example Henry VIII's flagship the Mary Rose^[2][3]). The facility's name is abbreviated to Diamond throughout this article.

Construction and finance

Diamond was built at Chilton near Didcot in Oxfordshire, UK, on the site of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory operated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). It produced its first user beam towards the end of January 2007, and was formally opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 19 October 2007^[4].

The facility is operated by Diamond Light Source Ltd,^[5] a joint venture company established in March 2002. The company receives 86% of its funding from the UK Government (via the STFC) and 14% from the Wellcome Trust. Diamond cost £260m to build which covered the cost of the synchrotron building, the accelerators inside it, the first seven experimental stations (beamlines) and the adjacent office block, Diamond House. Costain Ltd constructed the building and the synchrotron hall. Significant construction achievements to note:

i) The project was completed on time and on budget;

ii) The construction of Diamond was completed with one of the lowest accident rates of a mega project completed in the UK. Over 1.3 million manhours were completed during the peak of construction without a single accident.

The synchrotron

Diamond generates synchrotron light at wavelengths ranging from X-rays to the far infrared. This is also known as synchrotron radiation and is the electromagnetic radiation emitted by charged particles travelling near the speed of light. It is used in a huge variety of experiments to study the structure and behaviour of many different types of matter.

The particles Diamond uses are electrons travelling at an energy of 3 GeV ^[6] round a 561.6 m circumference storage ring. The ring is not circular, but is shaped as a twenty-four-sided polygon.^[7] As the electrons pass through specially designed magnets at each vertex, their sudden change of direction causes them to emit an exceptionally bright beam of electro-magnetic radiation. This is the synchrotron light used for experiments.

The electrons reach this high energy via a series of pre-accelerator stages before being injected into the 3 GeV storage ring:

• an electron gun - 90keV
• a 100 MeV linear accelerator
• a 100 MeV–3GeV booster synchrotron (158m in circumference).

The Diamond synchrotron is housed in a silver toroidal building of 738m in circumference, covering an area in excess of 43,300 square metres, or the area of over six international Association Football Pitches. This contains the storage ring and a number of beamlines^[8], with the linear accelerator and booster synchrotron housed in the centre of the ring. These beamlines are the experimental stations where the synchrotron light's interaction with matter is used for research purposes. Seven (Phase I) beamlines were available when the Diamond became operational in 2007, with another fifteen (Phase II) being constructed and becoming operation over the period 2007-2012. As of July 2011 there were nineteen in operation, with more under construction. The Government and the Wellcome Trust have now agreed to fund Phase III of Diamond which will increase the number of operational beamlines to 32 in 2017.

The seven beamlines which were available when Diamond first became operational in January 2007 were:

• extreme conditions beamline for studying materials under intense temperatures and pressures (Beamline I15).
• materials and magnetism beamline, set up to probe electronic and magnetic materials at the atomic level (Beamline I16).
• three macromolecular crystallography beamlines, for decoding the structure of complex biological samples, such as proteins (Beamlines I02, I03 and I04).
• microfocus spectroscopy beamline, able to map the chemical make up of complex materials such as moon rocks and geological samples (Beamline I18).
• nanoscience beamline, capable of imaging structures and devices at the scale of a few nanometres (millionths of a millimetre) (Beamline I06).

Phase II of Diamond will increase the number of beamlines to 22, with the 15 new beamlines becoming operational over the period 2007-2012.

Phase III of Diamond provides for the design, procurement, construction and commissioning of an additional 10 beamlines to complement those in Phases I and II of Diamond. They will become operational over the period 2013-2017/18.

Diamond is intended ultimately to host up to ~ forty beamlines, supporting the life, physical and environmental sciences.

Case Studies

• On 13 September 2007, scientists from Cardiff University, led by Professor Tim Wess, found that the Diamond synchrotron could be used to discover hidden content of ancient documents by illumination without opening them (penetrating layers of parchment)^[9][10].

• In November 2010 the Journal Nature published an article detailing how scientists Goedele Maertens, Stephen Hare & Peter Cherepanov from Imperial College London used data collected at Diamond to advance the understanding of how HIV and other retroviruses infect human or animal cells^[11][12]. The findings may enable improvements in gene therapy to correct gene malfunctions.

• In June 2011 an international team of scientists led by Professor So Iwata publised an article in the Journal Nature detailing how using Diamond they had successfully solved the complex 3D structure of the human Histamine H1 receptor protein. Their discovery opens the way for the development of ‘third generation’ anti-histamines, specific drugs effective against various allergies without causing adverse side-effects^[13][14].

Background

Diamond is a UK National Facility that aims at providing researchers from the UK and the world with synchrotron-based techniques for a wide range of scientific applications.

The name DIAMOND was originally conceived by Mike Poole (the originator of the DIAMOND project) and stood as an acronym meaning DIpole And Multipole Output for the Nation at Daresbury. With the location of Diamond now being in Oxfordshire, the original meaning of the acronymn was superseded by the current definition. This derives from that the fact that the light from the synchrotron is both 'hard' (referring to the "hard" X-ray region of the electromagnetic spectrum) and bright, and hence the current name "Diamond" was born).^[15]

Diamond is located on the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory site, near to the ISIS neutron source, the Central Laser Facility, and the nearby laboratories at Harwell and Culham (including the Joint European Torus (JET) project). Diamond was originally due to replace the second-generation synchrotron at Daresbury in Cheshire, however, it was decided to locate the new British synchrotron in Oxfordshire.

The Diamond synchrotron is the largest UK-funded scientific facility to be built in the UK for over 45 years, since the Nimrod proton synchrotron which was sited at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. In 1977 financial approval was given to convert the Nimrod facility into the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) named ISIS.

There are ~ 70^[16] dedicated synchrotron facilities in the world, and Diamond (3 GeV) is the world's largest medium energy synchrotron. Only four dedicated synchrotron facilities in the world are currently larger than Diamond, and all are high energy machines. These are: i) SPring-8 in Japan (8 GeV); ii) The ESRF in Grenoble, France (6.03 GeV); iii) The Advanced Photon Source (APS) in Chicago, USA (7 GeV); iv) DESY's PETRA III (6 GeV) in Germany, which is currently the world's largest dedicated synchrotron source.

Films, Animations and Podcasts

• Diamond Films and animations
• Diamond YouTube Channel
• Diamond Podcasts
• We are all Scientists
• BBC TV News - 5th February 2007

See also

• Synchrotron Radiation Source (SRS)
• European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF)
• Synchrotron

References

1. ^ Diamond and Rolls-Royce shine light on world’s biggest synchrotron stage
2. ^ High-tech conservation solutions for old warship - Diamond Lights Source
3. ^ Podcast - Dr Mark Jones from The Mary Rose Trust discusses his research
4. ^ Diamond News: Her Majesty The Queen Officially Opens Diamond Light Source
5. ^ Diamond Light Source Ltd
6. ^ Equivalent to accelerating them through a voltage of 3 billion volts; 1 electronvolt is the energy an electron gains when accelerated by a potential difference of 1 volt.
7. ^ Diamond Light Source Podcast Feb 2009
8. ^ Current list of Diamond Beamlines
9. ^ BBC NEWS, 'Super-scope' to see hidden texts
10. ^ Diamond: Unravelling the secrets of ancient parchments
11. ^ Diamond News: X-rays illuminate the mechanism used by HIV to attack human DNA
12. ^ Nature Article: The mechanism of retroviral integration from X-ray structures of its key intermediates
13. ^ Diamond News: Histamine H1 receptor breakthrough heralds improved allergy treatments
14. ^ Nature Article: Structure of the human Histamine H1 receptor complex with doxepin
15. ^ Private Communications with Prof Gerd Materlik, CEO of Diamond, and with Mike Poole
16. ^ Lightsources.org: List of world Synchrotron (Light Source) Facilities

External links

• Diamond Light Source
• Lightsources.org
• ISIS
• Science and Technology Facilities Council
• Central Laser Facility
• JET Project
• Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, CCFE
• Research Sites Restoration Limited
• BBC News Article: 'Super-scope' opens for business (5th February 2007)

Coordinates: 51°34′28″N 1°18′39″W / 51.57444°N 1.31083°W / 51.57444; -1.31083