Mesoscale order can lead to emergent properties including phononic bandgaps or topologically protected states. Block copolymers offer a route to mesoscale periodic architectures, but their use as structure directing agents for metallic materials has not been fully realized. A versatile approach to mesostructured metals via bulk block copolymer self-assembly derived ceramic templates, is demonstrated.

Actinide materials exhibit strong spin–lattice coupling and electronic correlations, and are predicted to host new emerging ground states. One example is piezomagnetism and magneto-elastic memory effect in the antiferromagnetic Mott-Hubbard insulator uranium dioxide, though its microscopic nature is under debate. Here, we report X-ray diffraction studies of oriented uranium dioxide crystals under strong pulsed magnetic fields. In the antiferromagnetic state a [888] Bragg diffraction peak follows the bulk magnetostriction that expands under magnetic fields.

Pressure is a fundamental thermodynamic parameter controlling the behavior of biological macromolecules. Pressure affects protein denaturation, kinetic parameters of enzymes, ligand binding, membrane permeability, ion transduction, expression of genetic information, viral infectivity, protein association and aggregation, and chemical processes. In many cases pressure alters the molecular shape. Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) is a primary method to determine the shape and size of macromolecules.

Optimization of an area detector involves compromises between various parameters like frame rate, read noise, dynamic range and pixel size. We have implemented and tested a novel front-end binning design in a photon-integrating hybrid pixel array detector using the MM-PAD-2.0 pixel architecture. In this architecture, the pixels can be optionally binned in a 2 × 2 pixel configuration using a network of switches to selectively direct the output of 4 sensor pixels to a single amplifier input. Doing this allows a trade-off between frame rate and spatial resolution.

We have fabricated 128×128 pixel readout ASICs for the MM-PAD-2.1, a wide-dynamic-range photon-integrating detector intended for high-energy x-ray imaging (>20 keV). Design specifications include a signal-to-noise ratio of 10 for measurement of a single 20-keV photon, a maximum measureable signal of 108 20-keV photons/pixel/frame, and the ability to accurately measure sustained photon rates of ≥ 109 20-keV photons/pixel/s. The pixel pitch is 150 µm, resulting in an active area of 19.2 mm × 19.2 mm per single-chip module. ASICs have been bonded to both Si and CdTe sensors.

A hard x-ray, high-speed, high dynamic range scientific x-ray imager is described. The imager is based on the mixed-mode pixel array detector (MM-PAD) readout chip coupled to a 750 μm thick cadmium telluride (CdTe) sensor. The full imager is a 2 × 3 tiled array of MM-PAD sensor/readout chip hybrids. CdTe improves detection for high energy x-rays as compared to silicon sensors, enabling efficient x-ray imaging to extend to >100 keV . The detector is capable of 1 kHz imaging and in-pixel circuitry has been designed to allow for well depths of greater than 4 × 106 80 keV x-rays.

We present first characterization results, with a focus on high-flux measurements, of a fast-framing, wide-dynamic-range x-ray camera intended for high-energy imaging. The MM-PAD-2.1 uses an integrating pixel front-end with a charge removal architecture and in-pixel counter to extend the pixel well depth while maintaining low read noise across the full dynamic range. The charge-removal mechanism is dead-time-less (i.e., incoming signal continues to be integrated by the front-end while charge removal is taking place).

Properties arising from ordered periodic mesostructures are often obscured by small, randomly oriented domains and grain boundaries. Bulk macroscopic single crystals with mesoscale periodicity are needed to establish fundamental structure–property correlations for materials ordered at this length scale (10–100 nm). A solvent-evaporation-induced crystallization method providing access to large (millimeter to centimeter) single-crystal mesostructures, specifically bicontinuous gyroids, in thick films (>100 µm) derived from block copolymers is reported.

This article describes a highly parallel event driven interface between a Pixel Array Detector (PAD) and its processing electronics. The method used was originally developed for the Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) X-ray Pixel Array detector to allow for real-time processing of X-ray image data on its processing FPGA. This interface potentially allows for entirely asynchronous data transfer off the detector at rates exceeding 110Gbps and operates without the need for a constantly running clock.

The routine atomic resolution structure determination of single particles is expected to have profound implications for probing structure-function relationships in systems ranging from energy-storage materials to biological molecules. Extremely bright ultrashort-pulse X-ray sources - X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) - provide X-rays that can be used to probe ensembles of nearly identical nanoscale particles.