Pressure-jump apparatus for time-resolved and static X-ray diffraction studies of conformational/phase transitions & structure in soft matter systems

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There is currently a pressing need for the development of techniques that will allow experimentalists to probe the time-dependent structural behaviour of out-of-equilibrium soft condensed matter systems. An ideal technique for monitoring and triggering the structural evolution of such transformations within the millisecond timescale is time-resolved X-ray scattering, employing pressure as the triggering variable. The p-jump technique can be applied quite generally to the study of soft condensed matter and biomolecular phase transformations, such as lyotropic liquid crystal phase transitions, micelle-vesicle transformations, DNA unwinding, and protein folding. To this end we aim to develop and construct a millisecond pressure-jump X-ray cell for use at the Non-Crystalline Scattering beamline I22 at Diamond. We will also develop user-friendly apparatus control, integrated with the beamline software currently under development for I22. Although this apparatus is primarily designed for pressure-jump experiments, it can also be used for rapid scanning of pressure in the range 1 bar - 5 kbar, allowing pressure-temperature phase diagrams to be determined rather efficiently. It should also be noted that the cell will be capable of holding a fixed pressure for specific experiments.