Notices

Stanford-Berkeley Summer School on Synchrotron Radiation and Its Applications: August 17-22, 2008

The sixth Stanford-Berkeley summer school will provide basic lectures on the synchrotron radiation process, requisite technologies, and a broad range of scientific applications. Visits to both the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) and the Advanced Light Source (ALS) in Berkeley will be included, with opportunities to interact with the professional staff and graduate students at both facilities. The summer school will be limited to approximately forty graduate students, with a preference for those pursuing doctoral research in the physical sciences in which synchrotron radiation is expected to play a significant role. The summer school is jointly sponsored by Stanford University; the University of California at Berkeley; the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory; and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Lectures will be presented by professors and scientists from these four organizations and their user communities. The summer school will be housed on the Stanford University campus. Co-chairs of the summer school are Professors Anders Nilsson and David Attwood.

Details describing the summer school, planned lectures, housing, costs and how to apply will be posted shorlty on the school's Web site. Applications should include a brief academic record, a statement describing the intended research area and how a knowledge of synchrotron radiation would enhance those studies, a list of publications (if any), and information on how to reach the applicant by email and phone through the period extending to the time of the summer school.

Applications will be accepted beginning June 1
Early decisions will be made beginning June 15
Final decisions will be made by July 25

ALS Lobby Gets a New Look

The ALS lobby has recently undergone a "makeover" in order to better showcase ALS science and engineering to visitors. The first stage of the redesign—installation of a new science highlight display area, banners, and signage—was completed at the end of February, just in time for the triennial BES Review. The next step will be to create content for a flat-screen display that will provide tour guides and visitors with an introduction to the ALS, an overview of recent science highlights, and facility information. The renovation project was funded by the Berkeley Lab Directorate and spearheaded by the ALS Communications group. Go here to view images of the Lobby upgrade.

Next Long-Term Schedule Posted

The next long-term running schedule, from July 1 through December 31, 2008 has been posted. The schedule may be viewed on the Web or downloaded in PDF, Word, or Excel formats.

Important Top-Off Progress

The ALS made a big step towards the successful completion of the top-off upgrade during November and December of 2007. The recommissioning of the injector complex was successfully completed and user operation was moved from injection at 1.5 GeV to full-energy injection at 1.9 GeV. Although all the hardware installations for this upgrade were completed at the end of 2006, the new power supply for the booster dipole chain had failed during the final testing conducted by the vendor. This caused several days delay in user startup in January 2007 and subsequently limited performance. A successful collaborative effort between the vendor and ALS engineers during the Thanksgiving shutdown in November resolved the problem (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1: Measured current waveforms during 1.9 GeV operation of the three main power supplies for the booster synchrotron. The bend magnet power supply delivers a peak power of about 2 MW.

The first beam operation of the booster sychrotron at up to 1.9 GeV occurred on December 3 (Fig. 2). During the following week, injection rates into the storage ring were improved, and full-energy injection became standard on December 11.

Fig. 2: Screenshot of a control system panel showing first beam injected at 1.9 GeV into the ALS storage ring on December 3, 2007.

An immediate benefit of the full-energy injection is that transients in air and cooling water temperatures—previously caused by the change in magnet currents for injection—disappeared (Fig. 3), resulting in better stability of the accelerator. The goal in the coming months is to slowly increase the peak stored current to 500 mA and reduce the time necessary for refills from 20 minutes to below 10 minutes. This would make it possible to inject more often than the current schedule of eight hours between refills and could result in a significant increase in average flux and brightness even before full top-off operation. Migrating to full-energy injection concludes the major hardware part of the top-off upgrade of the ALS.
thermal contrast

Fig. 3. Average air temperature in the ALS accelerator tunnel for a typical day with injection at 1.5 GeV (blue) as well as with full energy injection (red), showing the improved thermal stability.

Three New Users' Executive Committee Members Elected

ALS users have elected the following three representatives to the executive council.

Yves M. Acremann (PULSE Center at SLAC, Stanford University)
Phil Heimann (Advanced Light Source, Berkeley Lab)
Wayne Stolte (University of Nevada, Las Vegas)

The new UEC members, along with student representative Anne Sakdinawat (University of California, Berkeley/University of California, San Francisco, Bioengineering
Center, Center for X-Ray Optics, Berkeley Lab) will begin their three-year terms on January 1, 2008. Congratulations and thanks go to all of the nominees and to the four retiring UEC members Simon Morton (Physical Biosciences Division, Berkeley Lab), Jinghua Guo (Advanced Light Source, Berkeley Lab), Clemens Heske (University of Nevada, Las Vegas), and Amanda Hudson (student representative, University of Nevada, Las Vegas).

More information about the election and the new UEC members is available on the election Web site.

Let the ALS Know about Your Success: Working with Press Releases

Support for the ALS and other synchrotron light sources is highly dependent on communicating their innovative and forefront science. News articles in the media based on press releases issued by users' research institutions is one way to accomplish this, provided that there is some mention of synchrotron radiation in general and the ALS in particular in the press release and, we hope, the news article that results. Whenever a user's home institution prepares a press release based on research that was conducted at the ALS, it is very helpful if both the ALS and synchrotron radiation are mentioned.

All ALS users are asked to notify Lori Tamura (510-486-6172) at the ALS when they become aware of an impending press release based on their research, it would also help us in promoting users' achievements and, in the process, ours as well.