Status of the crystallography beamlines at SSRF

Abstract

The Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF), an advanced intermediate-energy third-generation light source in China, was completed with seven phase-I beamlines opening to users in May 2009. Among these beamlines, there are two dedicated crystallography beamlines, one for macromolecular crystallography and one for crystallography in materials science, condensed matter physics and other relevant fields. The macromolecular crystallography beamline BL17U1, based on an in-vacuum undulator, has achieved very high brightness at the sample position with its flux of 4.1 × 10¹² photons/s at 12 keV and focused beam size of FWHM (H × V) 67 × 23 μm² in a small beam divergence over an energy range of 5-18 keV. Nowadays, there are about 200 user groups at this beamline with more than 330 structures solved each year. In the past, lots of significant results have been obtained at this beamline, such as the structural determination of important membrane proteins and proteins of viruses. In addition, three new macromolecular crystallography beamlines of different features have just been constructed and will soon open to users. To meet the rapidly growing user demands and the important scientific challenges, a few more dedicated crystallography beamlines have been proposed in the Phase-II Beamlines Project.