BioMAX is the first X-ray macromolecular crystallography beamline of MAX IV Laboratory, which begins its user operations in 2017. It is a state-of-the-art resource accommodating multiple cutting edge experimental possibilities. The design goal for BioMAX was to create a stable and reliable beamline that is user friendly. The beamline experiment set-up is highly automated, in terms of both sample handling hardware and data analysis, including feedback on the data collection.

The X-ray beam focus is 20 x 5 μm² at the sample position with a photon flux of 2 x 10¹³ ph/s at 500 mA ring current. The operational energy range of the beamline is 5–25 keV. Alternatively, using aperture overfilling it is possible to obtain a stable 5 x 5 μm² beam at the sample position. Due to its extensive energy tunability, BioMAX is an ideal source for de novo phasing using the anomalous signal of heavy elements. Beam defocusing creates a practically parallel beam, which can be used to resolve extremely large unit cells > 1000 Å at high resolution. Due to its small beam cross-section and optional parallel beam, BioMAX is an optimal experimental set-up for X-ray crystallography using microcrystals and ultra large unit cells.