A Novel Dual Air-Bearing Fixed-x Diffractometer for Small-Molecule Single-Crystal X-ray Diffraction on Beamline I19 at Diamond Light Source

Herein, we describe the development of a novel dual air-bearing fixed-diffractometer for beamline I19 at Diamond Light Source. The diffractometer is designed to facilitate the rapid data collections possible with a Dectris Pilatus 2M pixel-array photon-counting detector, while allowing remote operation in conjunction with a robotic sample changer. The sphere-of-confusion is made as small as practicably possible, through the use of air-bearings for both the omega and (sic) axes. The design and construction of the new instrument is described in detail and an accompanying paper by Johnson et al. (also in this issue) will provide a user perspective of its operation.