Welcome to the Helmholtz SESAME Soft X-ray Beamline Project HESEB

This initiative was launched by the Helmholtz research centre DESY in Germany with the plan to build a new state-of-the-art beamline in the soft X-ray range at SESAME to be used for a large number of top-class scientific applications. The goal is to create new research opportunities at SESAME and to enhance the cooperation in photon science between German and European research groups and the SESAME members.

Within the four-year project (2019-2022), a Helmholtz consortium of five German research centres (DESY, FZJ, HZB, HZDR and KIT) has designed a high-performance beamline for soft X-rays and planned its realization at SESAME. The undulator photon source was developed and built by HZB, while the contract for the technical design, construction and installation of the beamline was awarded to the company FMB Berlin, which has already successfully built and installed several such beamlines at various facilities worldwide.

The layout allows for the operation of two separate experimental endstations. The first one is provided by the HESEB project and will enable absorption and fluorescence measurements. The second one focuses on photoemission spectroscopy and will be funded by Türkiye as SESAME member state.

The inauguration of the HESEB beamline took already place on 12 June 2022 at SESAME witnessed by the Jordan Minister for Scientific Research, the German Ambassador to Jordan and the President of the Helmholtz Association.

In the course of the project the initiative is acting as a seed to foster further cooperation between Germany, Europe and the Middle East and to build up international user consortia and research teams to utilize HESEB and to continuously contribute to the setup and development of experimental stations, special sample environments and further instrumentations. Corresponding training, education and support measures offered by the participating Helmholtz centres will guarantee the international scientific attractiveness and quality of the beamline and secure its long-term scientific use and excellence by creating own scientific user communities and by building up long-lasting cooperation.

Soft X-rays together with powerful X-ray optics and detector systems, offer the possibility to investigate a great variety of scientific issues in solid state, interface and surface physics, in physical chemistry, biological systems and in earth and environmental sciences. The element-specific interactions of soft X-rays with matter allow analytical spectroscopic investigation procedures with high precision for many elements of the periodic system, particularly at surfaces and interfaces. Established techniques to use photoelectron and absorption spectroscopy and resonant inelastic X-ray scattering allow numerous scientific applications, e.g. in the field of energy and semiconductor materials, magnetic films or in-situ investigations at homogeneous catalytic systems. There are also many applications of soft X-rays in the field of cultural heritage by measuring fluorescent light on ancient samples and materials.

The HESEB beamline in the soft X-ray range fits perfectly well to the recommendations of the SESAME strategic development plan to realise a beamline in the soft X-ray range, which is strongly supported by the scientific user communities of the SESAME member countries. The beamline will be fully complementary to the other SESAME beamlines in the infrared and hard X-ray range.