ALSNews is a biweekly electronic newsletter to keep users and other interested parties informed about developments at the Advanced Light Source, a national user facility located at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California. To be placed on the mailing list, send your name and complete internet address to ALSNews@lbl.gov. We welcome suggestions for topics and content.

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ALSNews           Vol. 106           July 8, 1998

Table of Contents


    1. REPORT FROM JUNE 13 SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING
    2. ALS USERS' MEETING TO BE HELD OCTOBER 22-23
    3. USERS' MEETING T-SHIRT DESIGNS DUE JULY 24
    4. COURSE ON OPTICAL SYSTEMS FOR SYNCHROTRON RADIATION JULY 19
    5. WHO'S IN TOWN: A SAMPLING OF ALS USERS
    6. OPERATIONS UPDATE

We have a longer-than-usual issue of ALSNews this time, but we hope you'll find the contents worthwhile. We'll go back to our shorter issues as the news allows! --Editor

1. REPORT FROM JUNE 13 SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING
(contact: stohr@almaden.ibm.com)

The Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC), formerly called the Program Advisory Committee, advises the Director of Berkeley Lab on the ALS scientific program through the ALS Division Director. Current members are David Agard (U. California, San Francisco), Gordon Brown, Jr. (Stanford U.), Daniel Chemla (U. California, Berkeley and Berkeley Lab), Chien-Te Chen (Synchrotron Radiation Research Center, Taiwan), Wolfgang Eberhardt (Forschungszentrum Juelich, Germany), Roger Falcone (U. California, Berkeley), Janos Kirz (State U. New York, Stony Brook), David Shirley (Berkeley Lab), Joachim Stohr (IBM Almaden Research Center), Robert Stroud (U. California, San Francisco), and Baylor Triplett (Intel Corporation). Arthur Suits (Berkeley Lab) is an ex officio member representing the ALS Users' Executive Committee. The SAC's report to Berkeley Lab Director Charles Shank from its June 13 meeting follows.

The SAC applauds the increased level of involvement in and cognizance of ALS matters by the LBNL [Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory] Director and Deputy Director and encourages an increased level of interaction with the SAC.

We have the following recommendations:

1. The SAC supports the concept of superbends and the installation of three superbend sources.
2. We recommend that the SAC chairman become an ex officio member of the Science Policy Board.
3. We strongly urge that all proposals for new beamlines and branchlines be reviewed by the SAC before submission for ALS funds and external funds. This applies to user-initiated projects as well as projects generated by the ALS outreach program.
4. We recommend that each PRT [Participating Research Team] designate a spokesperson who can act as its representative in scientific and technical matters.
5. We recommend that the major scientific program areas at the ALS be represented on the SAC by at least one member.
6. The SAC recommends a new PRT tenure review process. The new process, described below, is a modified version of the one recommended by the committee in its report following the 10/19/96 meeting:

   ALS management informs the SAC of an upcoming review. The SAC appoints one of its members to head the PRT tenure review panel. The review panel head and ALS management select several (3-5) review panel members who could be SAC members or recognized experts and set a review date.

   In preparation for the review, the PRT is requested to submit the following material:

   1. A description of the original PRT program and whether and how it has changed with time. The following points should be addressed:
      (a) Scientific areas
      (b) Technical beamline and endstation specifications, performance, and planned upgrades. Summary of past, present, and future funding
      (c) Criteria for PRT membership
      (d) Active personnel
      (e) Management and beamtime allocation
      
   2. A short description of the scientific highlights of the performed research. Emphasis should be on the big picture, not on details, i.e., why are the results significant or important?
   3. A description of the PRT's future plans, addressing points (a)-(e) under point 1 and the proposed scientific program.
   4. A list of publications resulting from work performed under the PRT program. The review will be based on the submitted material and oral presentations by the PRT members.

   The review panel prepares a short written report based on the four evaluation criteria: scientific excellence (30 points max.); suitability for third-generation source (30 points max.); human and financial resources (20 points max.); and management and commitment (20 points max.).

   The panel report is presented to the SAC by the panel head. The PRT spokesperson is also invited to the SAC review for an oral presentation of the scientific program and to address additional questions. The SAC makes a tenure recommendation to ALS management.

7. The SAC recommends the imminent review of the spectromicroscopy and biological microscopy programs at the ALS. The committee has looked at these programs in its 10/19/96 meeting and feels that a thorough review of these two program areas is important. The spectromicroscopy review should include all variants of spectromicroscopy, such as PEEM, STXM, and micro-XPS, and applications of the techniques in various scientific areas such as polymers, magnetic materials, semiconductors, and environmental materials. Motivations, goals, and accomplishment of the various programs should be presented as well as the instrumental capabilities at the ALS relative to those at other facilities.
8. The SAC recognizes existing conflicts between the ALS and the CXRO [Berkeley Lab's Center for X-Ray Optics]. At its next meeting, it would like to hear a report from the ALS director how he intends to solve this conflict.
9. The SAC recommends that ALS management move toward independent research programs of ALS staff scientists. The research activities should be part time in addition to facility-related duties. Independent research programs are envisioned to be important in attracting and retaining a first-rate scientific staff. A plan should be developed with sensitivity to user and DOE issues and presented to the SAC.
10. The committee is receptive to an off-site retreat, suggested by the LBNL director, or a two-day meeting in order to overcome the existing backlog in scientific program and PRT review and in order to help chart a new course for the ALS in a timely manner. The SAC considers it important that such a meeting be well prepared and in the committee's opinion the meeting should not take place before the fall.
11. The committee acknowledges the request of the new ALS director for more frequent meetings which might involve only local SAC members. All possible means should be explored to involve non-attending SAC members.
12. The committee requests better planning of future SAC meetings. Two or three meeting dates per year should be established well ahead of time (at least by six months). The main charges to the committee and related information material should be received by the SAC members in advance of the meeting.

Joachim Stohr, SAC Chair
IBM Almaden Research Center
stohr@almaden.ibm.com
Tel: (408) 927-2461
Fax: (408) 927-2100

2. ALS USERS' MEETING TO BE HELD OCTOBER 22-23
(contact: w_meyer-ilse@lbl.gov)

Mark your calendars now for the annual ALS Users' Meeting, October 22-23, 1998, sponsored by the Users' Executive Committee. The meeting will include new research results from the ALS, reports from ALS management, and updates on funding prospects.

A formal announcement of the meeting will be sent out at the end of July, and the final program and registration materials will be mailed in early September.

3. USERS' MEETING T-SHIRT DESIGNS DUE JULY 24
(contact: ejmoxon@lbl.gov)

As we announced in the last issue of ALSNews, ALS users, staff, family, and friends are invited to submit designs for an ALS T-shirt. The winner will have his or her signed artwork featured on T-shirts for participants at this year's ALS Users' Meeting (October 22-23). Designs should be no larger than 8.5 in by 11 in (22 cm by 28 cm) and should use no more than four colors. The words "Advanced Light Source" or "ALS" must appear somewhere in the design.

Send designs by July 24 to Elizabeth Moxon, Advanced Light Source, Berkeley Lab, MS 4-230, Berkeley, CA 94720, or fax to 510-495-2111.

4. COURSE ON OPTICAL SYSTEMS FOR SYNCHROTRON RADIATION JULY 19
(contact: howells@lbl.gov)

On July 19, Malcolm Howells, head of the Optical Sciences Section at the ALS, will give a short course in connection with the SPIE (International Society for Optical Engineering) Annual Meeting in San Diego, which runs July 19-24. Howells has been involved in the design and application of beamline systems and the development of synchrotron radiation (SR) facilities since 1971. This is an excellent opportunity for people interested in learning about optical-system design for SR facilities such as the ALS. A course description and contact information follow.

The course, titled "Optical Systems for Synchrotron Radiation," presents

- Overview of physics and engineering fundamentals of optical systems for SR beamlines
- Production of SR, including flux, brightness, spectral and angular distribution, power output, and coherence properties of bend-magnet and undulator sources
- Steering and focusing of highly polarized x-ray beams by means of grazing-incidence mirrors (discussed from an engineering standpoint), including design and fabrication of mirror substrates (cooled and uncooled, metal and ceramic); polishing of optical surfaces; and shaping of mirrors, especially those of elliptical shape, by elastic deformation
- Optical path function analysis applying to all mirrors and reflection gratings, presented in a unified way that allows the optical properties, including aberrations, to be understood and calculated for mirrors and gratings of all surface shapes and groove distributions
- Application to the design of practical soft x-ray monochromators, with emphasis on spherical- and plane-grating schemes (SGMs and PGMs) both with and without variable-included-angle capability
- Summary of current design options and some future possibilities for soft x-ray beamlines

After completing this course, students should be able to

- Calculate the x-ray-beam properties needed for beamline design work starting from the parameters of a bend-magnet or undulator source
- Understand the process of grazing-incidence reflection
- Understand the effect of materials, thermal, polishing, bending, and cost issues on the process of designing an x-ray mirror system
- Understand and estimate the aberrations for any single grazing-incidence optic
- Formulate a design for the standard types of soft-x-ray monochromator, SGM and PGM
- Understand and compare the design options for a future beamline construction project

The course's intended audience is scientists, engineers, and managers who need to understand the issues involved in the design and performance of SR beamlines. Some prior background in optics and strength of materials is helpful but not essential.

If you would like to take this course and are not yet registered for the SPIE meeting, contact Kristi Bell (fax 360-647-1445, phone 360-676-3290, email kristib@spie.org).

5. WHO'S IN TOWN: A SAMPLING OF ALS USERS

To highlight the richness of our user community and help introduce recent arrivals, we offer this listing of some of the experimenters who will be collecting data during the next two weeks at the ALS.

Beamline 1.4.1: Joel Ager, Wei Shan, and Eugene Haller (all of Materials Sciences Division, Berkeley Lab) will study ultraviolet photoluminescence of wide-band-gap semiconductors.

Beamline 1.4.3: Satish Myneni (Earth Sciences Division, Berkeley Lab) will study the coordination chemistry of silicon on alkaline materials and the chemical heterogeneity of carbon functional groups in soil organic matter. Felicia Hendrikson and Robert Glaeser (Life Sciences Division, Berkeley Lab) will explore the infrared spectra of bacteriorhodopsin microcrystals.

Beamline 8.0.1: Eberhard Umbach (Universitaet Wuerzburg, Germany) will use soft x-ray emission spectroscopy to study band discontinuities in II-VI superlattices; he will also use soft x-ray fluorescence and photoelectron spectroscopies to study the influence of sodium contamination and silicon/selenium interdiffusion on the electronic structure of the buried CdS/Cu(In,Ga)Se2 thin film solar cell interface. Thomas Callcott (U. Tennessee) and David Ederer (Tulane U.) will use soft x-ray fluorescence for materials science experiments.

Beamline 9.0.2.2: Gary Jarvis and Matt Evans (Chemical Sciences Division, Berkeley Lab) will work with pulsed field ionization of CO and H2O.

6. OPERATIONS UPDATE
(contact: rmmiller@lbl.gov)

Beam reliability for the last two weeks was 91.2% overall and 93% for user shifts. Short outages were caused by a MatLab control application problem, failure of a high-voltage cable on a storage ring bump magnet (SRBMP1), and tripping of vacuum gate valve interlocks in the booster by the electron beam.

Long-term and weekly operations schedules are available on the Web (http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/accelinfo.html). Weekly operations scheduling meetings are held on Fridays at 3:30 p.m. in the Building 6 conference room. The Accelerator Status Hotline at (510) 486-6766 (ext. 6766 from Lab phones) features a recorded message giving up-to-date information on the operational status of the accelerator.