Multiscale X-ray microscopy

X-ray imaging has undergone a revolution over the last 15 years thanks to the use of increasingly powerful synchrotrons and is today a driving force for materials research. In hard materials, we have pioneered diffraction-based tomography and microscopy methods that allow to film the structural evolution within the interior of mm-sized samples of metals, ceramic or bones during real life processes - in 3D, and with a resolution approaching 30 nm. Combining X-ray science and work within mathematical reconstruction methods we design and at times operate instruments at the large-scale facilities. Currently we are building/using instruments at the ESRF in Grenoble and at MAX IV in Lund. The work is guided by the aim to understand and generate quantitative materials models on all relevant length scales. As such the methods are used to spearhead science at the interface between physics and materials.

SOLID also serves as a Danish competence center for X-ray imaging in general. We design and build laboratory-based equipment, operate the national X-ray infrastructure DANFIX (inaugurated 2020), and invent and proto-type new solutions for industry.  As examples, the spinouts Exruptive and Xnovo commercialize methodologies for airport security and for grain mapping, respectively.  As a consequence, our new 3D imaging center is becoming a meeting place for X-ray scientists, researchers from a wide range of fields, students, and industry.