optimization of seeding ongoing

tasks achieved during alignment:

- polarizer aligned

- analyzer aligned

- detectors + ADQ412 in operation

- check on the energy (up to know, the energy is fine)

X-ray delivery

• 9.3 keV, 800 uJ, 1-200 pulses, stable delivery

Optical laser delivery

• None

Achievements/Observations

• HWFS direct beam measured
• CRL focus measured with YAG screen and camera
• Setup for CRL heating measurement installed

Issues

• Difficulties with operation and syncrhonization of FLIR IR camera

X-ray delivery

• 9.3 keV, 800 uJ, 1-200 pulses, stable delivery

Optical laser delivery

• None

Achievements/Observations

• CRL chamber alignment
• CRL lens stack alignment
• XPD WFS alignment with CRL focused beam

Issues

• Some of the CRL lens stacks needs realignment

X-ray delivery

• 9.3 keV, ~1 mJ, 1-30 pulses, stable delivery

Optical laser delivery

• None

Achievements/Observations

• Direct beam trajectory alignment
• Alignemnt of IRD and microscopy screens
• rough alignment of XPD WFS

Issues

• beam down for sometime
• AGIPD slow data configuration issue, solved by DRC+Cal OCD

SA3 GATT has trouble in setting the pressure at ~0.5mbar. setting any value between 0.5 and 0.6 will have it settle around 0.48.

It turns out the GATT cannot tune the pressure between 0.48 and 0.62mbar. tuning pressure continuously to keep transmission constant gets us in the need of that range eventually. the problem is that at 0.48mbar the valve V30740S is at 100%. the minimum opening of the next valve V307030S gets already 0.62mbar.

[edit simon, after talking Michaela]

we had the idea that one could use two of the MFCs (M.R.+L.R.) at the same time to extend the range of the low end. Indeed this does work but one has to make sure that Set Control Mode is 1! (att 1)

This, at least gives us a upper limit of the low range of 0.52 mBar (mind you, this is only for manual settings, parallel operation of MFCs is not forseen so far by the software)

Set Control Mode to 1 on U.R. MFC gives us a low end of 0.56 mBar on the upper range

Mirror positions and beam position on the imagers for 14.8 keV SPB, 2mrad

ATTENTION: the alignment was difficult due to the strong background from SA3 with 500 pulses. For the future, maybe SA3 could reduce to single pulse during alignment of SA1. This would make the process easier.

fig1: M2 popin

fig2: M3 popin

fig3: SPB popin

fig4: beam transport overview

fig5: mirrors positions

fig6: for comparison, this is the M2 popin image when a strong background from SASE3 is coming (500 pulses, 3milliJoule, 2.1 keV)

X-ray delivery

• 9.3 keV, 1.8 mJ, 202 pulses most of the day.
• Attempted tuning to 14.8 keV during the first hour fo the shift did not work out. More time will be spent tomorrow morning tuning to that photon energy.
• Overall stable delivery. Only a magnet failure at 20:25 resulted in a drop of energy and was quickly recovered. Interestingly, during that time the slope through the train was reduced.

Optical laser delivery

• NA

Achievements/Observations

• Collected diffraction data from multiple samples, including mixing at different delays. Smooth sailing with the same nozzle for the entire day.

Issues

• Run controller and data manager crashed around 23:00 just as we were about to collect data from the last sample. Both devices were reinstantiated.

The SA3 EPS power limit at the Big brother was disabled to allow photon energy scans in SQS (due to Kr resonance at XGM, invalid power values are generated and then beam is blocked);

Action was performed by Lars F. (RC), Michaela Petrich (PRC) and F. Wolff-Fabris (XO) with Accelerator RPO.

It will be activated again on Monday 15.05.

**Update 15.05: the above mentioned rule is activated again at 08:10AM.

X-ray delivery

• 9.3 keV, 1.4-1.8 mJ and 12 keV, 1.1 mJ. 202 pulses most of the day.
• Reduced slope after afternoon tuning, down to 20%.
• Change to 12 keV with file prepared earlier this week did not work (no lasing). Tuning to 12 keV took 40 minutes.
• 30 minutes downtime in the morning.

Optical laser delivery

• NA

Achievements/Observations

• Optimised slits to protect the nozzle from X-ray damage.
• Collected data with a dozen of user samples. High hit rate and resolution achieved with some of them.

Issues

• No major issues.

Dear all,

I just got the information for BKR that due to a failed klystron we had a downtime around 8:40am this morning for about 30 mins.

Operation could be restarted successfully afterwards but with a different energy distribution than before. SASE2 has now reduced pulse energy and SASE3 got an increase.

The energy distribution from this morning will be reestablished tomorrow morning in a planned touch-up procedure tomorrow morning.

I hope that you can keep running your measurements under the new conditions. If not please do not hesitate to contact me!

Best regards

Michaela

beam parameters: 18 keV, 1 pulse on demand, 400 uJ

achieved:

• VISAR calibrations
• timing between X-rays, VISAR laser and DIPOLE laser
• main shots with DIPOLE energies up to 35 J, 10 ns flat top -> shock wave compression experiments on user targets

night shift changed the phase plate to 250 um, re-aligned everything and continued with user programme succesfully

issues:

• cryostat for the 100J is icing and needs to be defrosted which takes about 1 hour. The frequency of this happening is increasing - Over the last 24 hours it happened 3 times
• slowness of controls - especially Karabo playground MDLs
• slowness of DAMNIT and extraction of data tiff files
• ADQ412 (HED_EXP_IC2/ADC/1) stops randomly acquisition on its own

X-ray beam delivery relatively stable, could make use of bit higher pulse energy. Mirror feedbacks work fine

X-ray delivery

• 9.3 keV, 1.6 mJ, 202 pulses msot of the day.
• Slope across the train reduced comapred to yesterday, now about 25%.
• Changes in number of pulses in SASE3 not always automatically picked-up by kickers adaptation and requiring a nudge from BKR to restore performances.
• Beam down for ~35 minutes early morning, but otherwise stable delivery.

Optical laser delivery

• NA

Achievements/Observations

• Collected SFX data from 10 user samples, including at different detector distances for a few of them. Up to 10% hit rate observed.

Issues

• Still issues with nozzles: gas leak, EtOH leak.
• Multiple ASICs of AGIPD exhibit a jumping offset. Power cycle initiated at the end of the shift.

for 9th of May - 10th of May: user experiment 2740 , first users with DIPOLE100-X long pulse laser

Took beam at 18 keV with roughly 450 muJ

M1 and M2 Mirrors on Pt stripe, M3 on B4C and with Tx = 4

Aligned X-ray beam to end of the experimental hutch and optimised 3 different focus settings at shock TCC in IC2 i.e. 10, 25 and 50 mum which correspond to the three different phase plate settings of DIPOLE

Intermediate focussing scheme with CRL1 was chosen, focussing to TCC in IC2 with CRL3

VISAR laser and DIPOLE laser were aligned to TCC and VISAR laser was timed to the X-rays

Alignment of new white light interferometer for sample alignment was done

Calibration runs were taken for XRD, VISAR and X-ray only on samples was done

issues:

VAREX XRD detector shows a stripe: as it is far out in 2theta, this seems tolerable. The problem has been understood to originate from the frame grabber. We have a replacement card and it can be exchanged if users want to change this. At the moment the idea is to get the set-up ready first.

Questar1 camera in IC1 was broken last week during Relax shocks, the X-ray reference point in IC1 currently cannot be seen with this monitor as it is hidden by a damage: new camera is ready for replacement

Diverter for DIPOLE was not functioning during a major part of the night and this prevented DIPOLE shots to be taken after all the set-up was accomplished: was fixed by DIPOLE experts wwho came in for the day shift

XFEL pointing at the instrument is rather large - in the afternoon the beam size during horizontal beam size measurements were a factor of 2 larger than the vertical ones: problem under investigation currently (10 am of 10th of May)

X-ray delivery

• 9.3 keV, 1.8 mJ, 202 pulses most fo the day. Pronounced (~30-40%) slope across the train.
• Pointing initially far off the reference crosshair. One hour required at the start of the shift to go to 9.3 keV and align the beam to the crosshair.

Optical laser delivery

• NA

Achievements/Observations

• Collected diffraction from user calibration sample for detector geometry.
• Screened a variety of user samples and collected datasets with those showing clear diffraction.

Issues

• Pressure spike in MKB_PSLIT area.
• Various issue with several user nozzles.

Info from XRO (Maurizio Vannoni) to PRC concerning tunnel access request #152936 (Inspection and repair of SQS ESLIT)

- The ZZ-access will be done by Marc Planas, Massimiliano Di Felice, and Idoia Freijo.

- They will start their access between 9h00 and 9h30 and end their access by 12h30.

https://redmine.xfel.eu/issues/152936

UPDATE 11h45: ZZ-access is completed, beam is back in operation.

Stable beam delivery with 23keV and 140µJ at 2.2, 1.1 and 0.55MHz

User data acquisition during the day interrupted by storage and detector DAQ problems:

- problem with detector DAQ, which is correlated to the full SSD cache.

- we run out of storage, this problem was solved by the DAQ problems. We lost 6h of measurement time today, due to storage limitations. 

- 2 detector modules stopped sending data

Achivments:

-Move DSSC closer to the sample.

-Measure delay scans for opposite magnetic field.

Problems:

-No major problems

achievements

• exchanged He dewar and managed to cool down the sample again after vacuum issue last night
• started collecting additional scattering data with alternating magnetic field on large nanoparticles sample

problems

• no issues

achievements:

• measured delay scans on 16 nm samples at different magnetic fields (4 runs) before the problem below appeared

problems:

• scroll pump of the FFT degraded, rough vacuum got worse, this led to pump in error state and interlock valves. The scroll pump was replaced, vacuum re-established, but we could not see any signal from the samples, only diffuse scattering. We thought this was due to ice frozen on the samples when the pressure increased. We warmed up the cryostat, verified that the conditions of the samples are fine again, and finally started cooling down again.

We had stable x-ray delivery with 120µJ and up to 300 pulses.

Successful user data acquisition of water and water+THF samples at various supercooled states