NECAT Beamline

The Northeastern Collaborative Access Team (NE-CAT) facility at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory is managed by Cornell University and consists of seven member institutions:

  • Columbia University
  • Cornell University
  • Harvard University
  • Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Rockefeller University
  • Yale University.

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    Primary funding for this project comes from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences(NIGMS) , a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Additional financial support for NE-CAT comes from the member institutions.

    NIGMS Fast Facts

     

    New HKL2000 def file for the Pilatus detector can be found here.

    Winter 2011 “NE-CAT Communications” newsletter now available!

    Now you can view beamtime availability in a calendar format!

    GENERAL USER TIME

    General Users interested in beamtime for the upcoming 2012-3 run cycle should submit their requests to APS prior to the July 13th deadline.

    Both of NE-CAT's ID beamlines 24-ID-E and 24-ID-C are now equipped with MD-2 Microdiffractometers and robotic sample auto-mount system. They are operational and accepting General User proposals.

    Users who are in need of immediate beamtime can apply to APS for rapid access time to NE-CAT beamlines based on open availability of unscheduled time.

    Please see our General User Requirements.

    Overview

    The Northeastern Collaborative Access Team (NE-CAT) is funded by its member institutions and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) to operate synchrotron X-ray beamlines to address technically challenging problems in structural biology. These beamlines are an important resource for NE-CAT's institutional members as well as the national research community. NE-CAT provides 50% of the available beam time to the national user community. These beamlines have been developed using the extremely high-brilliance X-ray sources provided by the novel dual-canted undulators of the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at the Argonne National Laboratory. The optical trains for NE-CAT’s two canted-undulator beamlines are schematically shown below.

     

    Both undulator beamlines, 24-ID-C and 24-ID-E, are in full operation providing exceptionally stable well collimated X-ray beams and are optimized for microdiffraction crystallographic research. The 24-ID-C beamline is a variable-energy beamline providing X-rays from 6.5 to 20 keV. The 24-ID-E beamline is a fixed–energy microdiffraction beamline providing X-rays at 12.66 keV. Detailed descriptions of the beamlines can be found under “Facilities”.

    The user end stations for all the beamlines are fully equipped with state-of-the-art instrumentation for its users. Both undulator beamlines are equipped with MD2 microdiffractometers. The MD2 provides exceptionally well collimated beams from 5 microns to 100 microns in diameter and has sample visualization systems capable of visualizing micron-sized crystals. For data collection, both beamlines are equipped with very large-area CCD-based ADSC Quantum 315 detectors connected to a data storage system currently with a capacity of 39TB. The data acquisition systems are designed for very fast data acquisition, capable of taking exposures as short as 250 msec, with a dead time of 2 sec for un-binned images and 1 sec for binned images. Advanced Light Source (ALS)-type robotic sample auto-mount systems are available on both beamlines to automatically mount and dismount crystals. This robotic system makes screening large numbers of crystals much faster and easier. Users of the beamlines are supported by experienced crystallographers and have access to a full suite of on-line and off-line data processing software to analyze their data and solve macromolecular structures. A fully equipped chemistry laboratory is also available for users. Shown below are photographs of the two undulator-based user endstations.

     

     

    24-ID-C Variable Energy X-ray beamline User Endstation

    24-ID-E Fixed-Energy Microdiffraction X-ray beamline User Endstation

     

     

     
     

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