An accomplished international photographer has captured dazzling new images of one component of the main ring at our Australian Synchrotron and provided an inside view of the electron's path when it is used.
Charles Brooks, who is known for his shots of rare and valuable musical instruments, also shared radio waves produced in the vacuum chamber that had been converted into sound to hear the passing electrons.
Brooks took this unique opportunity to photograph a cryogenic undulator which will soon be installed in the main storage ring and used as a light source for the Nanoprobe Beamline.
Accelerator physicist Eugene Tan, who conceived of the concept, along with engineers and technicians, assisted the photographer.
Once installed, it will be placed under vacuum, cooled to -123°C (-190°F), and may not be opened again until the Synchrotron reaches the end of its service life.
"We are excited about the extraordinary images, which bring the spectacle of science to the public in such an engaging way," said Prof Michael James, Director, Australian Synchrotron.
Brooks explained that despite being a scientific instrument, the cryogenic undulator behaves a lot like a musical instrument.
"Electrons are fired down this shaft in tight, synchronized pulses. The intensely powerful magnets above and below cause the particles to undulate ever so slightly, much like the string of a fine cello," he said.
"That tiny movement sets off a cascade of electromagnetic waves that unleash an incredibly intense laser-like beam of light (x-ray synchrotron radiation) that scientists use to probe the hidden structures of our everyday world.
To capture this unseen landscape, Brooks used a laparoscope, usually reserved for medical procedures, adapted to a Lumix camera.
"This is the same technique I use to photograph rare musical instruments, peering inside inaccessible spaces."
Each photograph is a combination of hundreds of individual frames, blended using focus-stacking and panorama techniques to bring out every fine detail from the foreground to infinity.
Brooks was also able to add unusual sound effects (listen above), produced by Eugene Tan, that he shared on social media which he described as hearing what passing electrons would sound like inside the vacuum chamber.
The undulator is housed inside a large vacuum chamber and the passing electrons excite electromagnetic resonances of the chamber at VHF frequencies, similar to a drum.
"If you translate these radio waves produced in the vacuum chamber into sound, you can hear the passing electrons. And, if time were slowed by a factor of 2 million and you could hear radio waves," said Tan.
The cryogenic undulator used in the ring was provided by Proterial Ltd. for the new Nano Beamline as part of BRIGHT beamline expansion program.
"This cryogenic undulator (aka CPMU) is the first commercially produced insertion device of its kind, and was designed and built by Proterial, Ltd. in collaboration with Professor Hideo Kitamura at RIKEN and Professor Jui-Che Huang at NSRRC, " said Tan.
Brooks expressed his thanks to ANSTO and staff at the Australian Synchrotron, Eugen Tan in particular, for the photography session.
Prints will be for sale at this website:
https://www.architectureinmusic.com/collections/australian-syncrotron
The Australian Synchrotron is a major research facility and one of Australia's most significant examples of sovereign scientific infrastructure. Its incredibly powerful synchrotron light, produced as electrons circling a large ring are sped up just under the speed of light, is used at individual beamlines for scientific investigations. The techniques reveal the molecular and atomic details of a wide range of materials.
Electrons in the storage ring reach 1.4 million laps per second around the 216-metre circumference storage ring. They pass through the cryogenic permanent magnet undulators in 10 nanoseconds (10x10-9 seconds).
