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Motivated by the challenge of capturing complex hierarchical chemical detail in natural material from a wide range of applications, the Maia detector array and integrated realtime processor have been developed to acquire X-ray fluorescence images using X-ray Fluorescence Microscopy (XFM). Maia has been deployed initially at the XFM beamline at the Australian Synchrotron and more recently, demonstrating improvements in energy resolution, at the P06 beamline at Petra III in Germany. Maia captures fine detail in element images beyond 100 M pixels. It combines a large solid-angle annular energy-dispersive 384 detector array, stage encoder and flux counter inputs and dedicated FPGA-based real-time event processor with embedded spectral deconvolution. This enables high definition imaging and enhanced trace element sensitivity to capture complex trace element textures and place them in a detailed spatial context. Maia hardware and software methods provide per pixel correction for dwell, beam flux variation, dead-time and pileup, as well as off-line parallel processing for enhanced throughput. Methods have been developed for real-time display of deconvoluted SXRF element images, depth mapping of rare particles and the acquisition of 3D datasets for fluorescence tomography and XANES imaging using a spectral deconvolution method that tracks beam energy variation.

Compton scattering of laser and electron beams in a plasma channel can be utilized for high intensity X-ray source and polarized positron source for future linear colliders. Transportation of a CO2 laser beam by a 17mm plasma channel was observed. An X-ray generation experiment via laser Compton scattering in the plasma channel was attempted but the signal could not be separated from the background because of the electron beam modulation by the plasma.

The motion of atoms on interatomic potential energy surfaces is fundamental to the dynamics of liquids and solids. An accelerator-based source of femtosecond x-ray pulses allowed us to follow directly atomic displacements on an optically modified energy landscape, leading eventually to the transition from crystalline solid to disordered liquid. We show that, to first order in time, the dynamics are inertial, and we place constraints on the shape and curvature of the transition-state potential energy surface. Our measurements point toward analogies between this nonequilibrium phase transition and the short-time dynamics intrinsic to equilibrium liquids.