Many recent and planned upgrades to lightsources around the world are focused on improving emittance and maximizing coherent flux.1 Scanning Transmission X-ray Microscopes (STXMs) and ptychography beamlines can use these improvements only if detector speed, scanning speed, data pipelines, and data analysis tools are able to keep up. We will discuss here a brief overview of Advanced Light Source (ALS) Beamline 7.0.1.22, 3 and focus on recent developments in improving scanning speed. This is accomplished through the implementation of a spiral scan pattern originally developed for atomic force microscopy,4 and which improves scanning time by a factor of 3-5. This not only improves throughput but also enables new science as demonstrated by large population particle measurements and the observation of in situ dynamics on the time scale of seconds. We will also discuss how fast scanning will tie into other beamline improvements planned for the ALS upgrade.

1. Kevan, S., Robin, D., Falcone, R., Ralston, C., Zwart, P., Adams, P., Gilbert, B., Nico, P., Gilbert, P., Hexemer, A., Russell, T., Liu, Y., Bluhm, H., Guo, J., Rotenberg, E., Weber-Bargioni, A., Arenholz, E., Scholl, A., White, A., Mayra, R., and Rostomian, Z., ALS-U: Solving Scientific Challenges with Coherent Soft X-rays. 2017.
2. Celestre, R., Nowrouzi, K., Shapiro, D.A., Denes, P., Joseph, J.M., Schmid, A., and Padmore, H.A., Nanosurveyor 2: A Compact Instrument for Nano-Tomography at the Advanced Light Source. Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 2017. 849(1): p. 012047 DOI: 10.1088/1742-6596/849/1/012047.
3. Shapiro, D.A., Babin, S., Celestre, R.S., Chao, W., Conley, R.P., Denes, P., Enders, B., Enfedaque, P., James, S., Joseph, J.M., Krishnan, H., Marchesini, S., Muriki, K., Nowrouzi, K., Oh, S.R., Padmore, H., Warwick, T., Yang, L., Yashchuk, V.V., Yu, Y.-S., and Zhao, J., An ultrahigh-resolution soft x-ray microscope for quantitative analysis of chemically heterogeneous nanomaterials. Science Advances, 2020. 6(51): p. eabc4904 DOI: doi:10.1126/sciadv.abc4904.
4. Ziegler, D., Meyer, T.R., Amrein, A., Bertozzi, A.L., and Ashby, P.D., Ideal Scan Path for High-Speed Atomic Force Microscopy. IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, 2017. 22(1): p. 381-391 DOI: 10.1109/TMECH.2016.2615327.