DiffAbs can operate in two modes: (i) the ‘standard beam’ mode, obtained using the main optics, and (ii) the ‘microbeam’ mode obtained by adding secondary focusing optics (two mirrors in Kirkpatrick–Baez geometry or Fresnel-zone plates). Among these, the DiffAbs beamline (Baudelet et al., 2005 ▸ Coati et al., 2017 ▸) provides a monochromatic X-ray beam (tunable in the 3–23 keV energy range) from a bending magnet source.

The French synchrotron facility, Synchrotron SOLEIL, offers a large panel of synchrotron experiments to the scientific community thanks to its 29 different beamlines. The obtained results demonstrate the high quality of the data recorded from the CirPAD, which allows the proposal of its use to all scientific communities interested in performing experiments at the DiffAbs beamline. Additionally, the powder X-ray diffraction pattern of an LaB 6 reference sample is presented and refined. excellent pixel quality, flat-field correction, high-count-rate performance, etc. This article aims to demonstrate the main characteristics of the CirPAD (for Circular Pixel Array Detector) and its performance – i.e. This detector is based on the hybrid pixel photon-counting technology and consists of the specific assembly of 20 hybrid pixel array detector (XPAD) modules. In that context, the DiffAbs beamline, the Detectors and the Design and Engineering groups at Synchrotron SOLEIL, in collaboration with ImXPAD and Cegitek companies, have developed an original and unique detector with a circular shape.

One of the challenges of all synchrotron facilities is to offer the highest performance detectors for all their specific experiments, in particular for X-ray diffraction imaging and its high throughput data collection.

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