The Materials Science beamline at the Swiss Light Source has been operational since 2001. In late 2010, the original wiggler source was replaced with a novel insertion device, which allows unprecedented access to high photon energies from an undulator installed in a medium-energy storage ring. In order to best exploit the increased brilliance of this new source, the entire front-end and optics had to be redesigned. In this work, the upgrade of the beamline is described in detail. The tone is didactic, from which it is hoped the reader can adapt the concepts and ideas to his or her needs.

For many scientific questions gaining three-dimensional insight into a specimen can provide valuable information. We here present an instrument called "tOMography Nano crYo (OMNY)," dedicated to high resolution 3D scanning x-ray microscopy at cryogenic conditions via hard X-ray ptychography. Ptychography is a lens-less imaging method requiring accurate sample positioning. In OMNY, this in achieved via dedicated laser interferometry and closed-loop position control reaching sub-10 nm positioning accuracy. Cryogenic sample conditions are maintained via conductive cooling. 90 K can be reached when using liquid nitrogen as coolant, and 10 K is possible with liquid helium. A cryogenic sample-change mechanism permits measurements of cryogenically fixed specimens. We compare images obtained with OMNY with older measurements performed using a nitrogen gas cryo-jet of stained, epoxy-embedded retina tissue and of frozen-hydrated Chlamydomonas cells.

A new diffractometer for microcrystallography has been developed for the three macromolecular crystallography beamlines of the Swiss Light Source.

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The beamline optics of the vacuum-ultraviolet radiation beamline installed on a bending magnet of the Swiss Light Source are to be upgraded. Supports for all three optical elements of the beamline optics (collimating mirror, plane grating monochromator and focusing mirror) have been re-designed to allow a more stable and improved fine tuning. The monochromator is composed of a set of three interchangeable gratings mounted on a rotatable platform. Each grating is framed in an optimized goniometer mount, designed and built in-house, which uses flexible elements for precise and reproducible adjustments. The roll and yaw of the gratings can be adjusted with microradian precision to minimize conical diffraction.