AMPLIFI Partnership – 2nd Pulsed Power Shock BAG at ESRF
Santa Cruz, CA – AMPLIFY Partnership and the Imperial College London led their second set of user experiments driven with Pulsed Power for the ESRF (European Synchrotron Radiation Facility) Shock BAG (Block Allocation Group) at beamline ID19 led by Alexander Rack in December, 2025. They were joined by teams from the University of Birmingham, exploring the effect of metal oxide frameworks on shockwave propagation; KTH Royal Institute of Technology, studying jet formation from conical shockwaves with non-Newtonian fluids and high viscosity liquids; a colleague from EuXFEL, looking at granular flows; and one of our own PhD students had the chance to complete their studies on the growth of the Richtmyer Meshkov instability in cylindrical convergent systems.
The teams completed 84 experiments over 7 days of beamtime, along with multiple calibration runs to help quantify densities. Teams had the chance to be the first users at a synchrotron to use the new Shimadzu HyperVision HPV-X3 ultra high-speed video camera with up to 20 million frames per second – significantly higher number of frames, higher resolution and better synchronization to X-ray pulses than the Shimadzu HyperVision HPV-X2 with up to 10 million frames per second. They’re preparing for a unique opportunity in 2026 when ESRF tries 62bunch mode, with bunches spaced ~45 ns apart versus bunches currently spaced at 176 ns apart.
KTH experiment with high-speed jet from pulsed power driven conical wire array in a mix of water & glycerol.
X-ray Movie: frames 176 ns apart, energy 30 to 40keV & FOV ~9 x 15 mm.
AMPLIFI/Imperial College experiment exploring stabilization of Richtmyer Meshkov instability on cylindrically convergent implosions.
X-ray Movie: frames 176 ns apart & energy 30 to 40keV.
About ESRF
The ESRF (European Synchrotron Radiation Facility) is the world’s brightest synchrotron light source and a center of excellence for fundamental and innovation-driven research in condensed and living matter science. Located in Grenoble, France, the European Synchrotron owes its success to the international cooperation of 19 partner countries.
The ESRF is the most intense source of synchrotron-generated light, producing X-rays 100 billion times brighter than X-rays used in hospitals. These X-rays, endowed with exceptional properties, are produced at ESRF by high energy electrons that race around the storage ring, a circular tunnel measuring 844 meters in circumference. Each year, more than 9,000 scientists from around the world come to Grenoble, to beamlines, each equipped with state-of-the-art instrumentation, operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
From making history in 1988 as the world’s first third-generation synchrotron, to launching the first of a new generation of high-energy light source in 2020, the force of the ESRF is its capacity to innovate, pushing technology to its limits and seeking ever-higher performances in order to provide scientists with state-of-the-art instruments. ESRF-EBS (Extremely Brilliant Source) improves X-ray performances of brilliance and coherence by a factor of 100 compared to the previous source. Based on an award-winning lattice design, ESRF-EBS paves the way for a new standard of synchrotrons around the world.
Learn more about ultra high-speed visible & X-ray imaging solutions:
Contact a Hadland Imaging representative to learn more and visit our Shimadzu HYPERVISION HPV-X3 page for more information about ultra high-speed cameras & everything you need to get the job done right.
Keywords: Alexander Rack, AMPLIFY Partnership, beamline ID19, ESRF, European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Imperial College, Pulsed Power, Shimadzu HyperVision HPV-X2, Shimadzu HyperVision HPV-X3, Shock BAG, ultra high-speed X-ray imaging