A beamline for high-pressure studies at the Advanced Light Source with a superconducting bending magnet as the source

A new facility for high‐pressure diffraction and spectroscopy using diamond anvil high‐pressure cells has been built at the Advanced Light Source on beamline 12.2.2. This beamline benefits from the hard X‐radiation generated by a 6 T superconducting bending magnet (superbend). Useful X‐ray flux is available between 5 keV and 35 keV. The radiation is transferred from the superbend to the experimental enclosure by the brightness‐preserving optics of the beamline. These optics are comprised of a plane parabola collimating mirror, followed by a Kohzu monochromator vessel with Si(111) crystals (E/ΔE≃ 7000) and W/B4C multilayers (E/ΔE≃ 100), and then a toroidal focusing mirror with variable focusing distance. The experimental enclosure contains an automated beam‐positioning system, a set of slits, ion chambers, the sample positioning goniometry and area detector (CCD or image‐plate detector). Future developments aim at the installation of a second endstation dedicated to in situ laser heating and a dedicated high‐pressure single‐crystal station, applying both monochromatic and polychromatic techniques.