Accelerating synchrotron-based characterization of solar materials: Development of flyscan capability

Synchrotron-based μ-XRF is a powerful tool to measure elemental distributions non-destructively with high spatial resolution and excellent sensitivity. Recently, we implemented on-the-fly data collection (flyscan) at Beamline 2-ID-D at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory, making data acquisition faster than 300 ms per pixel practical. We show that flyscan mode at Beamline 2-ID-D enables (a) traditional elemental maps to be completed twenty times more quickly while maintaining reasonably high sensitivity, and (b) practical studies of materials with an order of magnitude lower total impurity concentration and sparser spatial density of impurities. We highlight opportunities for flyscan to enable qualitatively new forms of microscopy, leveraging the accelerated data-acquisition rate for multi-dimensional mapping.