Early Work with Synchrotron Radiation at Stanford

Abstract

The use of synchrotron radiation in the soft and hard X-ray spectral region received major impetus with the start of parasitic operation of the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Project (SSRP) in 1974. This was the first time that synchrotron radiation from a multi-GeV electron storage ring was made available in a user facility for studying the structure of matter. Here we review the early work at SSRP as well as the activities that preceded it, highlighting the scientific accomplishments (sof X-ray photoemission, EXAFS, protein crystallography), beamline instrumentation developments and source improvements. The early work using bending-magnet radiation led to the funding of several dedicated facilities in the US and elsewhere in the world -the so-called second-generation light sources. Early work with wiggler and undulator insertion devices led to funding of third-generation sources better optimized for insertion device sources, particularly undulators.

Benchmark results and theoretical treatments for valence-to-core x-ray emission spectroscopy in transition metal compounds

“…Third, as mentioned in Section II, DFT methods do not calculate several real fluorescence 'backgrounds' that contribute in the same energy range, i.e., the high-energy tail of the Kβ 1,3 fluorescence, radiative Auger contributions, or fluorescence resulting from multi-electron excitations. Consequently, we follow prior practice and make use of physically-motivated fits to these backgrounds; a representative example is presented in Fig.…”

“…While the roots of XAS extend back to the first observations by de Broglie in 1913, [1] the first 60 years of its life was spent as a topic of fundamental research with limited opportunity for application. It was not until the 1970s, with the establishment of several electron storage rings for dedicated synchrotron radiation experiments, [2][3][4] that XAS became a methodology with steadily growing reliability, availability and, especially, breadth of impact.…”

Impact of synchrotron radiation on macromolecular crystallography: a personal view

“…In this paper we will review the early stages of the development of synchrotron radiation as a tool for structural biology in general, and protein crystallography in particular, and the various methodological advances that were the consequences of its application. Unlike in a number of previous reviews of this field (for example, see Cassetta et al, 1999;Doniach et al, 1997;Fourme et al, 1999), we will not attempt to provide a complete and comprehensive historical record, but rather a personal story based largely on our own experiences during the early days of the utilization of synchrotron radiation for the studies of macromolecules.…”

Remote access to crystallography beamlines at SSRL: novel tools for training, education and collaboration

“…SSRL has a long history of excellence in structural biology research, including some of the first reports of X-ray absorption spectra from a biological sample (Kincaid et al, 1975), the first published report of single-crystal diffraction from protein crystals using synchrotron radiation (Phillips et al, 1976), fundamental studies of what would become the multiplewavelength anomalous diffraction phasing experiment (Phillips et al, 1977(Phillips et al, , 1978Templeton et al, 1980) and the development of insertion devices as sources of high-intensity radiation (Doniach et al, 1997).…”