PID feedback control of monochromator thermal stabilization

The desire for increasingly smaller X-ray beams for macromolecular crystallography experiments also stimulates the need for improvements in beam stability. There are numerous sources of instability, which influence beam quality on the micron-size scale. Typically, the most problematic source is thermal drift within the double crystal monochromators. In addition to using liquid nitrogen to indirectly cool both the first and second crystals, GM/CA-CAT previously used a combination of flowing water at constant temperature and copper braiding to stabilize the mechanics, mounts, and the Compton scatter shielding. However, the copper braids inefficiently stabilized the temperature of components that were distant from the water lines. Additionally, vibrations in the water lines propagated throughout the vibrationally dampened monochromator, thereby introducing both positional and intensity instabilities in the transmitted X-ray beam. To address these problems, heating pads were placed directly onto the temperature-sensitive components, with output controlled by a PID-feedback loop. As a result, there is negligible temperature change in the first crystal radiation shielding over the entire range of operational heat loads. Additionally, the angular drift in the second crystal induced by temperature changes in other components is dramatically decreased.