New five-circle κ diffractometer for reference-beam diffraction studies

A compact five-circle κ-geometry diffractometer has been designed and implemented at CHESS for automated reference-beam X-ray diffraction (RBD) experiments. The details of the diffractometer design are presented, along with its geometry calculations, and its alignment and control algorithm. An outline of the overall RBD experimental procedure has been developed based on this κ diffractometer. Measured RBD interference profiles from a lysozyme crystal demonstrate that efficient triplet-phase data collection is possible using this new device in a modified crystallography oscillation setup.