Speaker
Description
Within the recently completed MASS-PRAM project (Multimodal Approach to Study Structure-Property Relationships in Advanced Materials) at Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice (UPJS) an in-house laboratory X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) system was successfully procured. The newly operational instrument brings synchrotron-quality X-ray Absorption Near Edge Structure (XANES) and Extended X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (EXAFS) capabilities directly into a standard university laboratory environment. This acquisition democratizes access to advanced local structural characterization and optimizes the allocation of precious synchrotron beamtime.
The acquired instrument is a turn-key hiXAS integrated XAS spectrometer manufactured by HP-Spectroscopy. Built upon an optimized HAPG (Highly Annealed Pyrolytic Graphite) von Hamos spectrometer architecture, the system integrates an X-ray tube source, a high-resolution HAPG optics assembly, and a hybrid 2D detector (DECTRIS 500k). It operates over a broad photon energy range of 4.5 to 25 keV, covering the K absorption edges of 3d transition metals as well as higher-energy edges. Technical specifications feature a high spectral resolving power of up to $E/\Delta E$ = 4000, a wide bandpass of up to 1 keV, and an extremely high signal-to-noise ratio. These performance characteristics enable high-precision measurements on diluted samples with analyte concentrations as low as a few weight percent.
At the MASS-PRAM Laboratory, the spectrometer provides essential element-specific insights across characteristic correlation length scales. XANES delivers detailed information on elemental oxidation states and local electronic structures, while EXAFS determines the local atomic arrangement, exact bond lengths, bond angles, and coordination numbers around absorbing atoms. Ultimately, the procurement and integration of this hiXAS system complete a major infrastructure milestone, establishing the School for Structural Analysis at UPJS as a national competence center in Košice, Slovakia.
Acknowledgment
This study was funded by the EU NextGenerationEU through the Recovery and Resilience Plan for Slovakia under the project No. 09I03-03-V03-00034. Support from the project VEGA 1/0638/24 is also acknowledged.
