Cost-effective EMCCD-based detector for time-resolved biological SAXS applications

Third generation synchrotron sources such as the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL, are outstanding tools for X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scattering studies of non-crystalline biological materials. However, these studies are hindered by the lack of adequate detectors that can provide multiple frames of detailed structural information on the required millisecond time scale at the extremely high count rates available at the APS. RMD is developing a cost effective detector for time-resolved small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), using a cooled, 512×512 pixel electron multiplying CCD (EMCCD). This paper describes the detector design, its efficacy for time-resolved SAXS studies, and its imaging performance with frame rates of 30–500 fps.