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. 110          September 2, 1998

Table of Contents


    1. DIRECTOR CHEMLA GIVES TWO-MONTHS' PROGRESS REPORT
    2. PEEM2 RESOLUTION IMPROVES BY FACTOR OF FIVE
    3. NEW DEADLINE FOR USERS' MEETING ABSTRACTS: SEPTEMBER 8
    4. WHO'S IN TOWN: A SAMPLING OF ALS USERS
    5. OPERATIONS UPDATE

1. DIRECTOR CHEMLA GIVES TWO-MONTHS' PROGRESS REPORT
By Annette Greiner

Advanced Light Source Director Daniel Chemla held a "Town Meeting" last Thursday to review the facility's progress during its first two months under his direction. He began by reviewing the major ALS-related events since the beginning of July and those planned in the coming months. Upcoming events include a Strategic Planning Retreat on September 11, an ALS Scientific Advisory Committee meeting on October 3, and the ALS Users' Meeting to be held October 22-23.

The new director outlined the ALS's response to the Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee Report on Synchrotron Radiation Sources and Science (the "Birgeneau Report"). In addition to the steps taken before his directorship, he discussed a three-point strategic plan. This involves developing the best possible scientific program for the ALS, enhancing partnership with users, and developing all the capabilities of the light source.

Development of the scientific program is Chemla's first priority. He emphasized the importance of not only fostering a world-class scientific program but also communicating the scientific case to a broad audience. Key to achieving this are creating and disseminating scientific highlights, both in print and on the World Wide Web; producing the annual Activity Report; writing articles for journals and proceedings; and delivering presentations and seminars.

Enhancing partnership with ALS users began with the creation of the User Task Force in March. In addition, user representation has been increased in several other decision-making bodies. Users' Executive Committee (UEC) and Berkeley Lab Center for X-Ray Optics (CXRO) representatives began attending weekly Strategic Management Team meetings in July. In addition, the UEC chair as well as UEC and CXRO representatives will attend a semiannual Strategic Planning Retreat beginning in September. Chemla also places a high priority on increasing user representation on the Scientific Advisory Committee.

Noting the ALS's rapidly expanding user base, Chemla said that the facility must continue to enhance performance, develop its scientific program, and keep up with maintenance and infrastructure. Strategies for enhancing performance include implementation of a third-harmonic rf cavity to increase beam lifetime, further development of the infrared and ultraviolet beamlines, and the introduction of superconducting bend magnets (superbends) to increase brightness at higher energies without sacrificing performance at lower energies. Scientific Program initiatives in the works include a VUV/Soft X-Ray Molecular Environmental Science Facility with beamlines in Sector 6 and further development of the Macromolecular Crystallography Facility, ultimately taking advantage of superbend radiation. Priorities for infrastructure and maintenance over the next few years will be updating the aging control system, creating generic front ends, and building a beamline for research in x-ray optics and instrumentation.

Several other members of ALS management addressed the Town Meeting as well. Neville Smith, Deputy Director for the Scientific Program, spoke about the successful VUV-XII conference. Deputy Director for Operations Ben Feinberg reviewed operations changes, including a new Integrated Safety Management System. Group Leaders Gary Krebs, Zahid Hussain, and Howard Padmore introduced the User Support, Scientific Support, and Experimental Systems Groups, respectively. Finally, UEC Chair Werner Meyer-Ilse reported the UEC's satisfaction with changes in user relations. The meeting ended with the presentation of Outstanding Performance Awards to Accelerator Physics Group Leader Alan Jackson, Experimental Systems Group Leader Howard Padmore, Experimental Systems Group member Alastair MacDowell, and science writer Art Robinson.

2. PEEM2 RESOLUTION IMPROVES BY FACTOR OF FIVE
By Lori Tamura (Contact: SAnders@lbl.gov)

Test images taken with the new photoemission electron microscope (PEEM2) being commissioned at Beamline 7.3.1.1 show a fivefold improvement in spatial resolution over the previous PEEM, which was located at Beamline 8.0. Simone Anders of the ALS Experimental Systems Group (ESG) was able to obtain images of 100-nm gold particles on silicon with an estimated resolution of 50 nm, an improvement she attributes to skillful engineering. In addition, Anders plans to make certain adjustments to further improve the resolution by a factor of 2, bringing the instrument's actual resolution close to its calculated resolution of 20 nm.

Early PEEM technology utilized UV light only, which provides information about the topology and work function of surfaces, thin films, and multilayers. PEEM2 is designed to take advantage of both UV and x-ray light, the latter capable of providing additional data about chemical composition, chemical bonding states, molecular orientation, and magnetic properties (using circularly polarized light). Major applications include the imaging of magnetic domains in magnetic recording materials, elemental composition and chemical bonding in hard-disk coatings and sliders, and dewetting and decomposition phenomena in thin polymer blends and bilayers.

In addition to higher resolution and x-ray capability, PEEM2 will offer computerized operation, a full range of sample preparation equipment, and automated sample transfer. Essentially, the system is designed so that experimenters can make films in vacuum and transfer them directly to the microscope without contamination. The system, when fully commissioned, will be available to independent investigators for 50% of the available time.

The PEEM2 endstation is the product of a U.S. Department of Energy Cooperative Research and Development Agreement between the ALS and IBM. This three-year effort involved Michael Scheinfein (Arizona State University), Joachim Stohr (IBM), Howard Padmore (ALS ESG Leader), a team of ALS ESG members led by Anders, and a team of ALS engineers led by Rob Duarte.

3. NEW DEADLINE FOR USERS' MEETING ABSTRACTS: SEPTEMBER 8
(Contact: w_meyer-ilse@lbl.gov)

The abstract submission period for the annual Advanced Light Source Users' Meeting has been extended until Tuesday, September 8, 1998. The meeting will be held at Berkeley Lab on October 22-23. The ALS Users' Executive Committee invites users, including students and postdocs, to submit abstracts. Some abstracts will be selected as highlights for oral presentation; other submissions will be presented as posters. A special student poster competition with a cash award will also be held at this year's meeting. The poster sessions will be held in conjunction with the vendor exhibits on Thursday, October 22, from 12 to 3 p.m., and Friday, October 23, from 12 to 2 p.m.

To propose a presentation, submit a one-page abstract to

Ruth Pepe
Advanced Light Source, MS 6-2100
Berkeley Lab
Berkeley, CA 94720
Fax: 510-486-4773
Email: alsum@lbl.gov

The annual Users' Meeting, sponsored by the Users' Executive Committee, will include new results from the ALS, reports from ALS management, and updates on funding prospects. If you have not received a copy of the meeting's first announcement, which was mailed in July, and wish to be added to the ALS mailing list, please send your name, affiliation, and complete postal address by email to alsuser@lbl.gov. Meeting information is also available on the web at the address noted above.

4. 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 1.4.2: Michael C. Martin and Wayne R. McKinney (ALS) will be testing fast-timing FTIR capabilities in 2-bunch mode.

Beamline 1.4.3: Ted Raab (Univ. of Colorado, Boulder) will study amino acids in soils, focusing on surface reactivity near plant roots.

Beamline 7.3.3: Bob Glaeser (Berkeley Lab and Univ. of California, Berkeley) and Peter Walian (Berkeley Lab) will study the practicality of carrying out micro-protein crystallography on 50-micron samples with ALS bend magnet radiation.

Beamline 8.0.1: Dennis Lindle (Univ. of Nevada, Las Vegas) and his group will use time-of-flight photoelectron spectroscopy to probe the limits of fundamental assumptions, such as the dipole approximation, in x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.

Beamline 9.3.2: Charles Fadley (Berkeley Lab and Univ. of California, Davis) will conduct resonant photoemission studies, and Ed Moler (Berkeley Lab) will be commissioning the FTSX spectrometer.

Beamline 10.0.1: Gyorgy Snell (Western Michigan Univ.), a postdoc working with Nora Berrah (also of Western Michigan Univ.), will be performing spin-resolved electron spectroscopy using a mini-Mott/time-of-flight (TOF) spectrometer. Marco Wiedenhoeft (Western Michigan Univ.), a student with Dr. Berrah, will be measuring electron coincidence spectra using several TOF spectrometers with coincidence electronics.

5. OPERATIONS UPDATE
(Contact: rmmiller@lbl.gov)

Beam reliability for the last two weeks was 91.2% overall and 92.1% for user shifts. During this two-week period, two magnet power supplies failed and were replaced with ready spares. The overcurrent protection circuit for the power supply to the booster's quadrupole defocusing magnets required 6 hours of troubleshooting. There were nine water flow interlock trips: five on the Beamline 4.0 front end and two each on the Sector 1 and Sector 3 girders. There were also two vacuum interlock trips on the front end of Beamline 5.0. Problems ramping magnets and rf levels with MatLab during storage-ring refills were identified and fixed.

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.