W0107

New Opportunities for Biological Fiber Diffraction at Third-Generation Synchrotron Sources. Tom Irving, BioCAT, Dept. BCPS, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago IL 60616, USA

Third generation storage rings such as the Advanced Photon Source (APS) ,the ESRF, France, and Spring-8, Japan can be outstanding X-ray sources for biological small angle scattering and diffraction experiments. The combination of high flux (~ 10^13 ph/s, small source sizes ( ~ 100 micrometers) and extremely small source divergence (~ 40 micro-radians) can yield diffraction patterns of exceptional quality from small specimens. Recent results from the BioCAT undulator - based beamline (a NIH-supported Research Center) now being commissioned at the APS (available to outside users ca. fall 1998) will be presented which show the promise of these technologies for fiber diffraction.