SESAME is pleased to announce the successful installation and commissioning at its BM02-IR Beamline of a state-of-the-art Focal Plane Array (FPA) detector manufactured by Bruker Optik GmbH in Germany. Its integration into the beamline endstation very significantly increases the beamline’s experimental capabilities.
The new FPA system features markedly enhanced sensitivity, acquisition speed, and spatially resolved mid-IR imaging performance, which enables advanced spectroscopy and imaging applications across a wide range of scientific fields. The first operational tests have demonstrated excellent performance, thereby showing that the detector is ready for user operation.
Bruker installed the FPA detector on the instrumentation transferred to SESAME by INFN during an INFN-funded visit to SESAME from 19-23 October.
This was followed, on 2-6 November, by the visit of Giovanni Birarda, an IR Beamline Staff Scientist from the SISSI-Bio beamline at the Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste in Italy, whose technical support and scientific exchange significantly contributed to the successful commissioning and validation of the new detector. This visit took place in the framework of the SUNSTONE project, which is an EU-funded initiative aimed at advancing synchrotron-based analytical methods for cultural heritage, life sciences, and materials research. It promotes collaboration between European facilities, fosters knowledge sharing, and supports the development of next-generation instrumentation, perfectly aligning with the upgrades now implemented at SESAME’s IR Beamline.
As a result of the FPA detector, the role of the BM02-IR Beamline as an external node of INFN-CHNet, the Italian network dedicated to cutting-edge diagnostics for cultural heritage and materials science, is greatly strengthened. The consolidated partnership with INFN broadens access to high-level instrumentation and opens new opportunities for joint research initiatives.
The BM02-IR Beamline Principal Scientist, Dr Gihan Kamel concluded that “the commissioning of this advanced detector represents an important milestone for the user community and reinforces our commitment to providing world-class facilities and fostering collaborative, interdisciplinary research”.
