STIMULI: Support for Tomography and IMaging for Users of MAXIV beamLInes

X-ray tomography, as a non-destructive 3D imaging technique, allows analysis of internal structures of materials without destructive sample treatment and over representative sample volumes, which is invaluable for many research questions in industry, academia and the public sector from a wide range of application areas.

Non-destructive analysis also allows “in-situ” or “operando” experiments to follow material evolution in 4D (3D+t).

Thus, with tomography it is possible to gain access to otherwise inaccessible information on the fundamental building blocks and behaviour-controlling processes of materials in their relevant functional state/environment.

X-ray tomography is also one of the most accessible techniques for new synchrotron users, but requires experience or experienced support to develop and carry out a successful experiment.

A further, and significant, bottle-neck is the data analysis to extract useful information from the data, which is essential to realise the full potential of the limited synchrotron time.MAXIV will soon have three beamlines offering x-ray tomography (NanoMax, ForMAX and DanMAX), but there is limited support structure for the planning, execution and analysis of tomography experiments, which especially affects inexperienced users and will limit exploitation by industry.

The STIMULI project will enhance the uptake and exploitation of x-ray tomography at MAXIV from planning, through to analysis.