Analytical X-ray companies introduce better micro-focus X-ray source

Rigaku teams with PANalytical to develop a new high-brilliance micro-focus X-ray source.

Jeffrey Bouley
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AUBURN HILLS, Mich.—Rigaku Innovative Technologies Inc., a subsidiary of The Woodlands, Texas-based Rigaku Americas Corp., has teamed up with longtime collaborator PANalytical B.V., in Almelo, The Netherlands, to jointly develop a new high-brilliance micro-focus X-ray source.
 
This new source is a com­plete, turnkey X-ray beam mod­ule, consisting of a high-performance X-ray optic designed and manufactured by Rigaku and generator from PANalytical. Applications range widely, from determining protein structures critical for the mapping of the human genome to determining nanoparticle size distributions and shape functions for drug delivery mechanisms and into many non-pharmaceutical areas as well, such as semiconductors and environmental science.
 
"Unlike a medical X-ray, with a broad beam, this technology gives you a beam no larger than a human hair, and the diver­gence is small, thus giving you better quality results," says Tom McNulty, director of Rigaku America's materials science business unit. "These types of instruments are used for pro­tein crystallography work at all kinds of drug companies and biochemistry departments where people are trying to develop new drugs, improve old ones and other types of pharma­ceutical work."
 
He notes that rotating anode technology, which provides an even better quality X-ray beam, is also available through Rigaku, but this new X-ray source helps balance the issues of quality and price for end-users.
 
"You still get a very high-qual­ity beam, but at a lower cost and with fewer maintenance issues, so we see this being able to put pro­tein crystallography technology into the hands of more research­ers," McNulty says.
 
Although Rigaku covers a wide range of industrial and research applications, biotech is clearly a priority with this kind of technolo­gy, with Rigaku Chairman Hikaru P. Shimura noting on the compa­ny's Web site that "we are really focusing our energies and attention on several key areas, including bio­technology. And within biotechnol­ogy, we are focusing on structural genomics, which is, essentially, the high-throughput determination of protein structures."
 
The new source provides up to twice the usable X-ray flux when compared to currently available sealed-tube micro-focus source technology, reportedly offering excellent stability of spot size, spot position and intensity. This most recent collaboration between Rigaku and PANalytical follows a long history of product integra­tion between the two companies for both X-ray diffraction and X-ray fluorescence systems dating back to 1984.
 
One of Rigaku's core competen­cies has always been the accurate manufacturing of X-ray optical modules and rotating anode X-ray generators, notes Catherine Klein, senior VP for Rigaku Americas Corp., whereas PANalytical has a long history in the development of sealed-tube X-ray sources.
 
The jointly developed X-ray source will be branded by the two companies separately, and inte­grated into their respective lines of analytical X-ray products.

Jeffrey Bouley

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