Current Status of the Liquid-Metal-Jet X-ray Source Technology

TL;DR

This paper reviews the current status of liquid-metal-jet x-ray source technology, highlighting its improved brightness and reliability for advanced x-ray techniques.

Contribution

The paper presents advancements in liquid-metal-jet x-ray sources, achieving brightness one order of magnitude higher than existing sources.

Findings

Metal-jet anode x-ray sources now achieve brightness one order of magnitude higher than current state-of-the-art sources.

The technology has been improved in terms of output and reliability based on a decade of experience.

Abstract

High-end x-ray diffraction and scattering techniques such as high-resolution XRD, protein crystallography, and SAXS rely heavily on the x-ray source brightness for resolution and exposure time. Traditional solid or rotating anode x-ray tubes are typically limited in brightness by when the e-beam power density melts the anode. The liquid-metal-jet technology has overcome this limitation by using an anode that is already in the molten state.

We have delivered product performance of metal-jet anode x-ray sources with unprecedented brightness in the range of one order of magnitude above current state-of-the art sources. The technology has now further been developed in terms of output and reliability, using new solutions building on a decade of experiences.

This presentation will review the current status of the technology specifically in terms of stability, lifetime, flux and brightness. It will also discuss details of the liquid-metal-jet technology with a focus on the fundamental limitations of the technology. It will furthermore refer to some recent data from applications within x-ray diffraction and SAXS.