BM31 at the ESRF: a state-of-the-art beamline for materials research, with support from 6tec
Located at the heart of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, the BM31 beamline — operated by Swiss-Norwegian Beamlines (SNBL) — is a leading-edge instrument for the structural characterisation of materials. Thanks to a unique combination of techniques, BM31 enables the study of materials under conditions close to their real-world operation, a major asset for research into sustainable technologies and environmental applications.
Exceptional experimental capabilities
The new station (installed in 2022) specialises in the simultaneous combination of X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), powder diffraction and total scattering for pair distribution function (PDF) analysis. The optics and the station can switch automatically between different configurations, enabling time-resolved acquisition of XAS, high-resolution diffraction and total scattering datasets on the same sample, under the same experimental conditions.
This multi-probe combination covers a range of scales from short-range atomic arrangements (~1 Å) up to several nanometres via PDF, the average structure via diffraction, as well as the electronic state and local geometry around the element of interest via XAS. These capabilities are utilised for advanced studies on energy, materials, batteries and catalytic reactions.
6tec’s contribution
6tec contributed to the study and development of this instrument. Its expertise in scientific engineering and the design of equipment for demanding environments provided technical support for the work carried out on BM31, in line with its involvement in other ESRF beamlines (ID15, ID22 and BM14 version 2004).
