High-resolution spherical grating monochromator for the undulator beamline (BL-16B) at the Photon Factory

The design and performance of a 24 m high-resolution spherical grating monochromator (H-SGM) for the undulator beamline (BL-16B) at the Photon Factory are described. With three interchangeable gratings of 400, 900 and 2000 lines mm^-1, the H-SGM is designed to cover the photon energy range 40-600 eV. With a resolving power of approximately 2000 in the photon energy range 40-530 eV, more than 10¹¹ photons s^-1 have been measured. The best resolutions obtained so far, at a substantially lower photon flux, are greater than 10 000 at 250 eV and 8000 at 400 eV