Simple and robust aqueous sheet jets in vacuum.

Authors

Patrick E Konold, Adil Ansari, Daniel Westphal, Patrick Adams, Romain Letrun, Joana Valerio, Johan Bielecki, Roberto C Alvarez, Szabolcs Bódizs, Katerina Dörner, Gabriel Ducrocq, Lukas Grunewald, Konstantin Kharitonov, Chan Kim, Marco Kloos, Anna Králová, Taru Larkiala, Michael Maihöfer, Dimitra Manatou, Robert Mehlig, Diogo V M Melo, Petra Meszaros, Leonardo Monrroy, Tokushi Sato, Robin Schubert, Peter Smyth, Egor Sobolev, Fabian Trost, Raphael de Wijn, Lena Worbs, Tej Varma Yenupuri, Tong You, Joachim Schulz, Richard Bean, Kartik Ayyer, María Agustina Domínguez Martin, Henning Kirst, Helmut Grubmüller, Sebastian Westenhoff, Richard A Kirian, Filipe R N C Maia

Published in

IUCrJ. Sep 01, 2026. Epub Sep 01, 2026.

Abstract

Free-standing thin liquid films offer a convenient way to probe matter in solution without a substrate, where a small sample thickness is required. The production of thin films in a vacuum environment is required for probes that cannot penetrate through a surrounding gas or in cases where the gas produces problematic background noise. Nozzles that produce continuously flowing liquid sheet jets have been employed recently for scattering and spectroscopy measurements at X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs). However, their performance in vacuum with aqueous samples is complicated by high freezing susceptibility due to a strong evaporative cooling effect. Here, we introduce a vacuum-compatible gas-impinging liquid sheet jet nozzle capable of generating sub-100 nm aqueous films. The introduction of a second axisymmetric helium gas sheath surrounding the liquid orifice enables seamless startup and shutdown within a vacuum environment. We investigated the sheet geometry dependence under varying flow conditions and liquid viscosity and demonstrated its viability for X-ray scattering measurements at a high-repetition-rate XFEL source. Finally, we present potential strategies for reducing sample consumption. Our findings confirm that this nozzle exhibits simplified vacuum operation and may help promote the broader utilization of liquid sheet jets for several experimental applications.

PMID:
42678187
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 01 Sep 2026.

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