The Beamline Construction phase is set to: June 2025 – December 2029
TomoWISE is designed to be a state-of-the-art beamline completely dedicated to high-resolution full-field tomography of materials, exploiting the large penetration power of high energy X-rays. The beamline received funds from WISE (add link: https://wise-materials.org/) and the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (link https://kaw.wallenberg.org/) in June 2026, and has entered the construction phase immediately after.
On a 3 GeV synchrotron storage ring, producing high flux X-ray beams from higher harmonics of an undulator above 45 keV is only made possible by the small emittance of a 4th generation source. TomoWISE is thus designed to exploit the brilliance of the beam produced at MAX IV for enhanced image contrast, fast acquisition and improved resolution in phase contrast imaging methods using parallel and divergent beams. By delivering a high photon flux between 20 keV and 65 keV, TomoWISE will dramatically expand the X-ray energy range currently available at MAX IV, thus enabling new research opportunities for the Swedish materials science community.
Timeline
The beamline construction project has started in June 2025 and is foreseen to be completed by the end of 2029, with the start of the User Operation (UO).
The different scientific capabilities of the beamline will be developed and deployed in a progressive way within the duration of the project. In relation to the science cases covered by the beamline, we identified four main operation modes:
- Wide Beam (WB) for the study of large samples
- High Throughput (HT) tomographic microscopy (this will be the standard mode for TomoWISE),
- High Speed (HS) for capturing dynamic processes (4) High Resolution (HR) for nano-characterisation.
Beamline layout
The beamline design includes two photon sources, a Cryogenically cooled Permanent Magnet Undulator (CPMU) and a 3-Pole Wiggler (3PW). The beam from the CPMU will enable fast microtomography of millimetre-sized samples with routine acquisition rates up to several tomograms per second. The beam from the 3PW will enable tomography of large samples up to ~ 45 mm x 4.5 mm (h x v), with no need for beam expansion optics. Both sources will allow ultrafast radiography with acquisition rate of up to 100 kHz.
A large set of filters and a multilayer monochromator, that can be moved in and out of the beam, will provide highly intense parallel beams for fast tomography at the µ-tomography endstation. For higher spatial resolution, TomoWISE will feature a nanotomography endstation with fixed-curvature, graded multilayer Kirkpatric-Baez mirrors, used in conjunction with the multilayer monochromator, focusing the beam down to below 250 x 250 nm2 size at 30 keV. This will act as a source for projection microscopy in a cone-beam geometry, in which spatial resolution and field of view can be continuously adjusted by moving the sample between the focal spot and the detector.
The simple but flexible optical design of TomoWISE, together with the unique double source solution, will allow the choice among different configurations adapted to the needs of distinct materials science research questions. Table 1.1 summarises the different modes of operation illustrated in Figure 1 and the expected performance of the beamline
Tailored computational resources and user-friendly software for data acquisition, reconstruction, and analysis are crucial components of the beamline. Dedicated hardware and staff resources will be pivotal to build a stepping stone for robust, precise, and fast exploration of Big Data for academic and industrial users. This development will enable informed decisions during the measurement and likely lead to the shortening of the time between the experiment and publication or the impact on industrial processes. The computing infrastructure will be divided into two parts: one to handle the workflow from the detector to the reconstructed tomogram and one for data visualisation, segmentation, and quantitative analysis. Among these, the visualisation of the data during the experiment is of the highest priority, as repeatedly requested by researchers using tomographic methods.
The different scientific capabilities of the beamline will be developed and deployed in a progressive way within the duration of the project. In relation to the science cases covered by the beamline, four main operation modes are identified:
- WB -Wide Beam for the study of large samples – 45mm x 4mm
- HT- High Throughput tomographic microscopy – Robot arm
- HS- High Speed for capturing dynamic processes – 40Hz 3D
- HR- High Resolution for nano-characterisation- 250 nm @30, 45 keV