Hosted by: Sushil Sharma and Mary Carlucci-Dayton

High-resolution monochromators (HRMs) are key components at nuclear resonant scattering beamlines, and their development at the APS has been ongoing for decades. They are used to resolve the frequency spectrum of isotope-specific atomic dynamics using nuclear resonant vibrational spectroscopy and to reduce the enormous electronic charge scattering that accompanies nuclear excitation using synchrotron radiation. The latter allowing the measurement of hyperfine fields using synchrotron Moessbauer spectroscopy. The narrow line-widths (neV) associated with nuclear resonances also offer an excellent diagnostic tool for the characterization of HRMs, and have greatly facilitated their development. HRMs with ultra-high energy-resolution exposed the need for greater energy-alignment stability and prompted the development of cryo-stabilization. A recent prototype sub-meV-bandwidth monochromator for hard X-rays that implements cryo-stabilization has been built that displays a 100-fold improvement in energy-alignment stability over other designs. This unprecedented level of control allows one to observe the intrinsic factors that limit the energy resolution obtainable with silicon. I will present the principle design aspects of this prototype along with its performance, and discuss what has been learned.