STFC have established a new UK Hub for the Physical Sciences on XFELs, with the strategic aim of supporting the UK community of Physical Science academics wishing to use XFEL facilities. Funding is available to support UK academics in gaining access to these cutting-edge facilities.
Background
The UK has invested £30 million in the construction of the European XFEL and will contribute £3 million annually to support operations. In addition, STFC and EPSRC have jointly funded the development of the DiPOLE D100-X laser for the High Energy Density (HED) end station. While there is a small, established community of XFEL users in the UK, the 2016 STFC FEL review identified that the potential user community should be helped to grow. The Hub aims to use the expertise and facilities available in the Central Laser Facility and the Diamond Light Source to help UK academics to access the new, advanced capabilities that XFELs offer.
The Hub is operated by the Central Laser Facility with additional assistance from the Diamond Light Source and is available for all Physical Science academics in the UK. Academics working in the Life Sciences should contact the XFEL Hub at Diamond.
XFEL Hub for Physical Sciences – Applying for Funding
The primary scope of the Physical Science Hub is to provide basic logistical and consumables support to potential users to enable them to gain experience of XFEL facilities, including allowing them to attend experiments where grant or facility support is not available. The UK Hub for the Physical Sciences on XFELs has funding to support the basic logistical, consumables and immediate experimental needs of the UK Physical Science community. The Hub will support all UK Physical Science users of XFELs as far as its resources allow. Funding is available for experiments on the European XFEL and other international XFEL facilities.
In order to apply for funding, you must be a UK-based academic in the Physical Sciences and have no access to appropriate alternative funding that could support your proposed activities. If you are applying for T&S or targetry and sample preparation funding for an experiment, it must have already been allocated time on an XFEL facility. Requests for funding will be subject to an approval process, with all approved travel requests processed by the CLF User Office.
The following funding may be available:
A number of Physical Science PhD projects are currently being jointly funded by the Hub. Any announcements regarding the next call for jointly funded PhDs will appear on this website. Please get in touch if you have any questions regarding PhD funding.
FAP-awarded experiments
Where access time has been granted by an XFEL facility (via a FAP), but T&S support is not available either via the host facility or by grant funding, T&S may be provided for principal investigators and their team to perform their experiment. In these cases, a total of six people would be funded to attend for up to seven days for each experiment.
Collaborative experiments
One-off bursaries are available for researchers to attend “training” experiments where, with agreement, they would join an experiment led by another principal investigator. Here, they would gain valuable experience of how XFEL experiments are performed, interact with XFEL facility staff and foster new collaborations. Bursaries would cover T&S for two researchers to attend an experiment for up to seven days.
This will allow prospective XFEL principal investigators to attend XFEL User meetings or international workshops to develop their knowledge of XFEL capabilities and help them submit proposals in future. Alternatively, bursaries are available for students to attend relevant summer schools.
For any FAP-awarded experiment, funding may be available (depending on volume and complexity) to the UK principal investigator to support the production and preparation of custom targetry or samples if grant (or host facility) funding is unavailable. Requests for support with targetry and sample preparation would be facilitated by the CLF’s Target Fabrication group and Diamond sample support groups as appropriate.