NSTU-NETI presented the project of the station of the second stage of the SKIF CCP

To study modern structural materials at the SKIF CCP, NSTU-NETI has developed a conceptual design for a new high-energy station. The decision to create it in June was included in the decree of the Government of the Russian Federation "On Approval of the Federal Scientific and Technical Program for the Development of Synchrotron and Neutron Research and Research Infrastructure for the period up to 2030 and beyond." According to the document, station 2.1 "Engineering Materials Science" is planned to be launched in 2027.

The Novosibirsk University presented the project of the station during a press conference of the Interuniversity Consortium for Cooperation with the SKIF CCP in TASS.

The station is designed to study technologies that are used in industry in the production and processing of various structural materials — metals, ceramics, composites, powder mixtures, complex chemical compounds. According to Ivan Bataev, head of the Research Laboratory of Physico-chemical Technologies and Functional Materials, Professor of the Department of Materials Science in Mechanical Engineering at NSTU-NETI, head of the project "Scientific Stations of NSTU at the SKIF CCP" of the Priority 2030 program, scientists will investigate how materials behave in various technological processes, such as welding, casting, heat treatment and pressure treatment. In addition, scientists are interested in issues of strength, ductility, fracture, behavior under cyclic loads, and the so-called fatigue of materials.

"We will study materials using high—energy photons, see what happens to their atomic structure, conduct diffraction studies, determine the elemental composition and record its change, that is, solve a fairly wide range of issues," said Ivan Bataev.

The coordinator of the 2.1 station project is NSTU-NETI, besides which about 20 universities and organizations are involved in the development, including the National Research Nuclear University MIPhI, the Institute of Strength Physics and Materials Science of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Skolkovo and others. "The station of the second stage of the SKIF CCP is of great interest to the entire scientific world, so a large number of organizations want to act as executors of the project — to produce optical elements, their launch, configuration, and so on," said Professor Bataev.

One of the reasons for the scientific interest in the work of the Engineering Materials Science station will be a unique optical scheme that will focus high-energy X-rays. Scientists of the Baltic Federal University named after Kant, led by the director of the International Research Center "Coherent X-ray Optics for Megascience Installations", Candidate of Physico-Mathematical Sciences, Professor Anatoly Snigirev, proposed using multiprismatic lenses.

According to Anatoly Snigirev, the sawtooth lens design, which resembles the jaws of a crocodile, allows you to collect and concentrate harsh radiation, as well as create parallel beams and beams with increased flux density, which is important for materials scientists. The scientist himself and the founder of the idea of refractive optics called the principle of working with such optics "elegant". "By clenching and unclenching the jaws, you can control the X-ray radiation without sorting through the number of lenses. We simply insert fewer or more teeth or make them more dense by exposing the beam. We came to such a correct and elegant decision with our colleagues from NSTU-NETI," said Anatoly Snigirev.

The equipment will be manufactured at the Kant BFU, and a mock-up of the structure is currently ready. Once this task is solved, the 2.1 Engineering Materials Science station will be the first in the world to implement a project for focusing such hard X-ray radiation using refractive optics.

A mock-up of multiprismatic lenses for focusing high-energy X-rays was presented at the stand of the government of the Novosibirsk Region during the Technoprom days.