Europe's most powerful X-ray laser now handles data deluge from ultra-fast imaging
Scientists have built an automated system that processes petabytes of data from the European XFEL's fastest imaging experiments—work that previously required months of manual effort. The breakthrough lets researchers study soft materials in real time, accelerating development of everything from pharmaceuticals to polymers.
Originaltitel: A pipeline for megahertz X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy on soft matter samples at the MID instrument of European XFEL
In this article, we present the experimental protocol and data-processing framework for megahertz X-ray Photon Correlation Spectroscopy (MHz-XPCS) experiments on soft matter samples implemented at the Materials Imaging and Dynamics (MID) instrument of the European X-ray Free-Electron Laser (EuXFEL). Due to the introduction of a standard configuration and the implementation of a highly automated data-processing pipeline, MHz-XPCS measurements can now be conducted and analyzed with minimal user intervention. A key challenge lies in managing the extremely large data volumes generated by the Adaptive Gain Integrating Pixel Detector (AGIPD) - often reaching several petabytes within a single experiment. We describe the technical implementation, discuss the hardware requirements related to effective parallel data processing and propose strategies to enhance data quality, in particular related to data reduction strategies and an improvement of the signal-to-noise ratio. Finally, we address strategies for making the processed data FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable), in alignment with the goals of the DAPHNE4NFDI project.