MAX IV, Sweden’s national synchrotron laboratory welcomes TomoWISE, a full-field tomography beamline as the new chosen WISE beamline for the facility. The rigorous selection process was made possible thanks to relentless contributions by many actors. Selection of the new WISE beamline follows a three-year cooperation aimed at enabling new materials science for sustainability by the MAX IV organisation and the Wallenberg Initiative Materials Science for Sustainability (WISE) programme.
“On behalf of the entire MAX IV organisation, I am delighted with WISE’s decision to fund the TomoWISE beamline. We are profoundly grateful to WISE and to the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation for their continued confidence in MAX IV and for the investment that makes this project possible. Their commitment to Swedish science is invaluable,” said MAX IV Director Olof Karis.
TomoWISE expands the MAX IV portfolio to 17 beamlines, with the new beamline offering X-ray tomographic imaging and ultrafast radiography using hard X-rays in the energy range 20 keV to 65 keV. It will deliver high-resolution, 3D imaging capabilities ideal for studies of dense and bulk materials, an offering of strategic value for the Swedish academic and industrial user communities. Furthermore, the operational performance of TomoWISE will concurrently benefit from the MAX 4U project, the forward-looking 3 GeV storage ring upgrade planned at MAX IV.
The features and capabilities of TomoWISE align perfectly with the MAX IV strategic objectives for 2023-2032, which highlight the research benefits of 2D and 3D tomography in particular for real-time imaging and for measurements in real-world conditions. The new beamline staff for TomoWISE will also bolster MAX IV’s in-house imaging expertise for user studies of material structure and morphology. With TomoWISE, MAX IV reaffirms its commitment to deliver world-class research tools forfundamental research and applied science.
Imaging a sustainable future
TomoWISE will give researchers an unprecedented three-dimensional view of how real-world objects change and perform—under load, during chemical reactions, at high temperatures, and in other demanding environments. By visualising these processes under realistic conditions, the beamline will help researchers tackle some of the pressing sustainability challenges of our time: prolonging lifecycles, optimising energy technologies, reducing waste, and enabling circular use of resources.
Positioned on the 3 GeV storage ring, the dedicated tomography beamline is optimised for X-ray absorption and phase contrast imaging. The design includes fast micro-tomography and nano-tomography endstations, and utilises two photon sources, an undulator for a highly brilliant beam and a wiggler for a very wide beam. The imaging capabilities allow measurements that can mirror industrial materials processing and application scenarios. The deliverable includes streamlined hardware and software analysis tools, which lower the threshold for non-expert users.
The opportunities for research studies of material structure with TomoWISE span widely from composites and polymers, metals and additive manufacturing, soil and geoscience to catalysts, batteries and energy materials, pharma, and food and packaging.
An independent review showed that both TomoWISE, and SpectroWISE, a hard X-ray spectroscopy beamline also under consideration, would be transformative additions to the MAX IV portfolio. MAX IV therefore remains fully committed to realising SpectroWISE at the earliest opportunity. Together, the two beamlines would provide a complementary toolkit—one revealing 3D structure at multiple length-scales, the other mapping buried chemical interfaces in industrially relevant conditions—that can accelerate breakthroughs across the whole spectrum of sustainability.
“We look forward to working with our partners to deliver TomoWISE, to pursue the funding needed for SpectroWISE, and to put these unique capabilities in the hands of the researchers and innovators who are shaping a sustainable future,” said Director Karis.
The MAX IV organisation would like to express sincere gratitude to all who have been involved in the hard work on producing the technical design reports of TomoWISE and SpectroWISE.
