May 16th marked the first day of the XMaS beamline upgrade in the context of the ESRF Extremely Brilliant Source (EBS) project. The first part of the XMaS upgrade consists in extending the length of the present experimental hutch by about 4 m to accommodate the new source position in the upgraded storage ring. The new experimental hutch will occupy the space of the present control cabin. The control cabin will subsequently move 4 m back too and be located close to the offline x-ray source facility.

The XMaS diffractometer being craned out of the experimental hutch. First time in 20 years!

The flying XMaS diffractometer!

The experimental hutch without the diffractometer …

On the 16th May the International Day of Light (#IDL2018) was launched at UNESCO in Paris. Lightsources.org organised a PhotoWall with pictures from its member facilities that includes the ESRF. XMaS participated to the event.

For those who did not have the chance to view this special PhotoWall (online at https://lightsources.org/ only until the 21st May 2018), the pictures below showing:

- a panoramic view of the experimental hutch Credit: O. Bikondoa/ XMaS-ESRF (France)

- some of the beamline equipment: In-situ photovoltaics fabrication at XMaS/ESRF. Credit: S. Lilliu/ XMaS-ESRF (France)

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Magnetic WAXS/SAXS setup at XMaS-ESRF. Credit: L. Bouchenoire/ XMaS-ESRF (France)