General Atomics unveiled EXCALIBUR, short for Experimental X-ray CALIBration UseR facility, this month as a compact system for measuring and calibrating the thin films, coatings, foils, and Bragg crystals used in advanced X-ray equipment, without requiring time at a synchrotron.
The system combines X-ray sources, precision detectors, X-ray cameras, automated instruments, and analysis tools in a single laboratory setup. It determines material composition, X-ray transmission, and areal density non-destructively, and can inspect multiple spots on one sample or process dozens of samples in a single day. That throughput matters because thin-film and foil manufacturers routinely allow thickness tolerances of 10 to 20 percent, a range wide enough to affect experiment performance.
The more consequential capability may be Bragg crystal calibration. X-ray Bragg crystals serve as wavelength-selective optics in plasma diagnostics, separating X-ray emissions into spectra that reveal plasma temperature, density, movement, turbulence, and impurity content. What's new here is that calibrating these crystals has historically required time at large synchrotron facilities, which are oversubscribed and not routinely accessible to crystal fabricators.
"X-ray crystals are typically calibrated at large synchrotron facilities, which are in high demand and not routinely used by crystal fabricators," said Ruben Santana, scientist and project lead in Inertial Fusion Technology at General Atomics. "As a result, scientists may field a crystal in an experiment without full confidence in how its efficiency or quality will influence their measurements."
General Atomics has already published peer-reviewed results in Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion demonstrating the system's performance, using EXCALIBUR to calibrate a quartz crystal in Laue geometry. The company identifies fusion energy, plasma science, semiconductors, sensors, and space technologies as target applications, fields where thin-film and crystal tolerances directly determine whether experimental data can be trusted.
