The mar345 Image Plate Detector
Related Pages: Specifications | Examples
|
At the forefront of modern X-ray structure work, the mar345
Image Plate Detector System offers you the best choice
for recording diffraction patterns of
small molecules
as well as
protein crystals.
With its innovations in hardware design and
software support it is the ideal detector for single
crystal diffraction measurements of large and small molecules.
Furthermore, it is a powerful tool for use in the fields of
powder diffraction, texture analysis, small angle scattering and
fiber diffraction.
Since its introduction in early 1997 as the successor of the extremely popular mar scanners with 300mm and 180mm plates, the impact in the scientific community has been extraordinary. Close to 300 instruments have been installed by the end of 2004. Many of our detectors went to protein crystallography beamlines at synchrotrons around the world (Hamburg, Daresbury, Grenoble, Paris, Trieste, Brookhaven, Stanford, Brazil, China, etc.). As a consequence, many of the published high resolution protein structures are based on data collected with a mar scanner and our customer list reads like a "who's who" in crystallography. |
What makes the mar345 Image Plate detector so outstanding?
The answer is a sum of superlatives (for details,
please look up the specifications):
The mar345 Image Plate Detector can either be purchased
"stand-alone" or with a goniometer system:
Read-out cycles
range from 108 to 34 seconds, depending on pixel size
and scanned plate diameter. This is about 3 times faster than other
IP scanners and actually comes close to the performance
of CCD-detectors. Please,
look up the details!
The read-out system of the mar345 Image Plate Detector
is unique in its use of a single high performance 85mW laser
which delivers more than 0.8µJ/pixel at the plate. This
ensures that an extremely high percentage (>95%) of trapped F-centers
are transformed into photostimulated luminiscence.
The heart of the electronics is a 16-bit ADC. Raw data are
digitized in approx. 7 µsec per pixel.
The intrinsic noise of the system is 1 photon equivalent
only! The sensitivity corresponds to 1 X-ray photon per ADC-unit
at 8 keV.
Due to highly improved optics and electronics raw data
can be double-sampled: each pixel in the output image consists
of 2 digital data. The dynamic range thus is
effectively increased by 2 yielding real 17 bits (0:131071).
Double sampling is applied only in the scan modes with 150 µm
pixel size, reducing the size of a raw spiral pixel to 75 x 150 µm.
With its diameter of 345mm the mar345 Image Plate Detector offers
the largest detection area of popular detectors around.
WYSIWYG - What you see is what you get. You may have heard
that when talking about software. What we mean when talking
about hardware is: all you get is a scanner on top of the
X-ray generator, no bulky controllers, no noisy compressors or alike
stuffed in some dark corner of your lab. All the
scanner needs is inside the scanner. The one and only connection
to the outside world is an Ethernet cable to your computer.
Could an Image Plate Detector be more compact?
Before being shipped, the scanners are carefully calibrated in our
lab.
In the course of the calibration a correction table is
generated that will remain valid for the lifetime of the
scanner and that will compensate for all material inhomogeneties
and any geometrical deviations.
During that entire process we strictly apply a
no-compromises policy.
This ensures that instruments go to
the customer in perfect shape and thoroughly tested for all functions.
We are proud of having thus a long history of
quick and successful installations.
After many years of heavy-duty operation at many synchrotrons
we are confident to say: there is nothing around that compares to
the reliability of the mar scanners.
Our data collection software has had very strong input from
synchrotron needs: software that does not require
reading of manuals and can be operated by anybody.
This goal has been achieved without sacrificing functionality.
Even non-standard applications like MAD experiments can
be programmed as simple as setting up typical data collection runs.
For special applications we do supply software
that can be tailored to any needs - including source code.
The detector is mounted on a cardanic cradle system with
motor-driven adjustments, built-in ionisation chambers and
collimation system with continuously variable slits.
These unique features allow the complete system to be
easily integrated with any existing X-ray source
equipped with any X-ray optics. Thanks to motorisation
and using the X-ray intensity monitors of the ionisation
chambers optimal alignment with the
primary beam from scratch can be done in just 5 minutes!
We even provide a remote control for performing the whole
operation safely from outside the radiation enclosure.
Since late 2000 we offer a new goniometer setup for our detectors.
We call it Desktop Beamline (dtb) ® since it provides all
those nice tools for use at home that crystallographers used to find
only at synchrotron beamlines, in particular fully automatic beam
search and optimization. Virtually all movements are motorized
and can be operated by the mar data
collection software.
The mar detectors and goniometers are renowned for its reliability.
Due to this fact and due to excellent serviceability of our products,
real costs of ownership of our instruments are far inferior to those
of our competitors.
Goniometer options:
Ask for a quotation!