SPECIES is an undulator based soft X-ray beamline, located at the 1.5 GeV storage ring. The offered experimental techniques are Ambient Pressure X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (APXPS), X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS), X-ray Emission Spectroscopy (XES) and Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattaring (RIXS). The beamline has two branches that use a common elliptically polarizing undulator (EPU61) and a monochromator (PGM), providing photon energy range of 30 – 1500 eV. The beam is changed between the two branches by changing the refocusing optics after the PGM. Both branches have separate exit slits, refocusing optics and dedicated permanent end stations (APXPS and RIXS).

The APXPS end station is equipped with an electrostatic analyser for XPS and XAS on surfaces under UHV and at near ambient pressure conditions (up to 10-20 mbar). The end station is especially well suited for studies on solid-vapour/gas-liquid interfaces. This is, for example, relevant for studies of corrosion processes, heterogeneous catalysis, and charge/discharge cycling of batteries, film growth etc. We work in close collaboration with the HIPPIE beamline.

The RIXS end station has two spectrometers covering the wide energy range from 30 to 1000 eV. It will support measurements on various kinds of samples ranging from solids to liquids and gas-phase, and problems related to the molecular structure of liquid water, mixtures, and solutions can be addressed. Furthermore, the RIXS spectroscopy can be used to investigate cycling effects on the electronic structure of electrodes in Li-ion battery electrodes as well as of corrosion processes of transition metals. The end station provides also a NEXAFS detector and a manipulator with sample scanning capability.

Our RIXS users benefit also from our close collaboration with the VERITAS beamline, which, for example, simplifies sharing of samples between the beamlines due cross compatible sample manipulation and enables users to carry out the same experiment at the both beamlines.