A broadband waveguide for protein crystallography under intense microwave fields

Abstract

We present a slab-line waveguide whose geometry is optimized for wide-angle x-ray diffraction (XRD) experiments on protein crystals during irradiation with intense microwave fields. Characterization of the waveguide transmission and reflectivity (using time-domain reflectometry) and of the electric field distribution inside the waveguide (using finite-difference time-domain calculations) shows that the present device has a broad bandwidth from below 0.5 to 18 GHz, allowing one to perform frequency-dependent XRD studies with a well-defined transverse mode structure and negligible reflection losses. As shown with a specific example, our device provides a simple way to couple microwave irradiation experiments with high-resolution x-ray diffraction measurements from millimeter-size crystalline samples. The present design might prove useful for systematic studies of microwave effects on protein structure and dynamics.