NSRRC Activity Report 2023

098 NSRRC ACTIVITY REPORT 2023 experimental equipment, and different samples may require adjustments to the gas proportions. However, reinstalling and adjusting experimental facilities and changing gases required a significant amount of time and effort. Therefore, improvements in the TLS 07A1 experimental station include the following four aspects: 1. High-speed switching is used for different experiments to reduce the manual operation time. Common experimental methods at the TLS 07A1 can be categorized into three different experimental methods: X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and powder XRD. Different experiments require different experimental equipment. Automating the TLS 07A1 includes the adoption of multiple self-designed motor platforms to switch experimental equipment. The motor platforms have favorable repeatability during the switching process, reducing the time required for traditional handling, assembly, and positioning of moving parts. 2. An automatic gas replacement system is developed with a running time of less than five minutes. Thus, users can quickly choose different gas proportions according to the experimental requirements for different experimental modes and sample needs. 3. Sample switching equipment is added to continuously switch multiple sets of samples, replacing manual sample changes and improving the experimental efficiency. 4.The automated system is made to be operable using the SPEC software. Originally, different devices at TLS 07A1 were controlled or had their measurement data read through the SPEC software. In this automation project, equipment is controlled using the EPICS system running in the TPS accelerator, enhancing reliability. The control-side SPEC software can employ processes to control various EPICS subsystems, reducing the difficulty of user adaptation. The three techniques offered by the TLS 07A1 experimental station facilitate a wide range of experiments for both industry and academia. However, different types of experiments require distinct pieces of equipment. Therefore, managers and users often spent several hours installing bulky and expensive equipment on the experimental platform, and each of these switches required recalibration and realignment. Consequently, after the design of an automated system, the repeatability of the positions can be ensured through the control system, eliminating the need for repositioning. This approach results in a significant reduction in the switching time for each experiment without requiring manual intervention. According to the three different experimental requirements of the TLS 07A1 experimental station, the mechanical design needs to facilitate the transition between three different experimental setups for a single beamline. The corresponding design concept involves the shared use of a 2.7-meter-long vacuum tube, Io chamber, and attenuator for all three experiments. At the rear end of the shared equipment, a movable adjustment platform is designed, as shown in Fig. 1 . The experimental setups for XAS and XRD are installed on this movable platform. When users need to conduct XAS experiments, they can move Fig. 1 : Illustration of the devices in TLS 07A1 . [Reproduced from Ref. 1]