1. PHYSICAL SCIENCES INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATOR PROPOSALS DUE JUNE 1
(Contact: GFKrebs@lbl.gov)

June 1, 2000, is the deadline for independent investigator (II) proposals in the physical sciences for the next running period, which will last from December 2000 to May 2001. The Independent Investigator Proposal and Request for Beamtime form can be obtained from the User Services Office or on the Web at http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/quickguide/independinvest.html. Investigators who would like to keep a previous proposal active must fill in a one-page Experiment Report/Beamtime Request and submit it to the User Services Office by the June 1 deadline. (The information above does not apply to protein crystallography proposals, which have a separate process and schedule.) All II proposals have the option to remain active for two years (i.e., four six-month cycles) with the submission of an Experiment Report/Beamtime Request every six months.

The numeric rating for each II proposal will be communicated to the investigator along with comments from the Proposal Study Panel (PSP). The cutoff rating for each beamline in the previous proposal cycle is published on the Web at http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/quickguide/pspscores.html.

Information on the proposal process and a summary of the proposal deadlines for both physical sciences and protein crystallography are available at http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/quickguide/independinvest.html. Data sheets describing the capabilities of the beamlines at the ALS are also on the Web at http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/als_users_bl/datasheets.html.

To request a proposal form by mail, contact
Ruth Pepe, ALS User Services Administrator
Tel: (510) 486-5268
Fax: (510) 486-4773
Email: alsuser@lbl.gov

2. ALS TO WELCOME VISITORS ON SATURDAY, MAY 6
(Contact: EJMoxon@lbl.gov)

The ALS will again open its doors to the public on Saturday, May 6, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., as part of Berkeley Lab's Open House and Science Festival (information on the overall event is available on line at http://www.lbl.gov/OpenHouse/). Visitors will be invited to see "science in action" as they tour the ALS, where members of the Accelerator Physics Group will be on hand to answer questions and explain the intricacies of the ALS accelerators to the curious. There will also be hands-on activities exploring the properties of light and a "visible monochromator" demonstration. Just outside the building, guests will be able to enjoy "Cool Science Demos" presented by ALS staff, while kids will enjoy the thrill of seeing how things work at the always popular "Electronics Petting Zoo." So mark your calendar and bring the whole family to this unique event!

3. BESAC REPORT OFFICIALLY RELEASED BY DOE

The report on the recent ALS review commissioned by the Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (BESAC) of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has been officially released and is available on line in PDF format at http://www.sc.doe.gov/production/bes/BESAC/als%20report.pdf. This version includes a transmittal letter from BESAC Chair Geraldine Richmond (Univ. of Oregon) to DOE Office of Science Acting Director James Decker. The letter summarizes BESAC's response to the ALS review as well as to other reports presented at the last BESAC meeting. The original charge to the review committee and other BESAC reports can be found at http://www.sc.doe.gov/production/bes/BESAC/charges.html.

4. RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Byrd, J., S. De Santis, et al., "Design of a higher harmonic rf system for the Advanced Light Source," Nucl. Instrum. Methods 439(1), 15-25 (January 2000).

Hart, G.L.W., W.E. Pickett, E.Z. Kurmaev, D. Hartmann, M. Neumann, A. Moewes, D.L. Ederer, R. Endo, T. Tanigushi, and S. Nagata, "Electronic structure of Cu(1-x)Ni(x)Rh2S4 and CuRh2Se4: Band structure calculations, x-ray photoemission and fluorescence measurements," Phys. Rev. B 61(6), 4230-4237 (February 2000).

Kukk, E., J.D. Bozek, N. Berrah, J.A. Sheehy, and P.W. Langhoff, "Angular distributions of molecular-field and spin-orbit split core levels of sulfur 2p photoemission in OCS: A sensitive probe of the molecular environment," J. Phys. B 33(1), 51-57 (January 2000).

Loo, B.W., W. Meyer-Ilse, and S. Rothman, "Automatic image acquisition, calibration and montage assembly for biological x-ray microscopy," Journal of Microscopy - Oxford 197(2), 185-201 (February 2000).

Muramatsu, Y., M. Grush, and R.C. Perera, "Resonant elastic x-ray scattering of graphite and diamond at the carbon K threshold," Phys. Rev. B 61(4), 2393-2396 (January 2000).

Seal, S., T. Warwick, N. Sobczak, and J. Morgiel, "A scanning photoemission microscope (SPEM) to study the interface chemistry of AlTi/C system," J. Mater. Sci. Lett. 19, 123-126 (January 2000).

5. WHO'S IN TOWN

Following are some of the experimenters who will be collecting data during the next two weeks at the ALS.

Beamline 1.4.3
Karl Nieman and Ron Sims (Utah State Univ.)
Trine Celius (Michigan State Univ.)
Felicia Betancourt and Robert Glaeser (Univ. of California, Berkeley, and Berkeley Lab)
Hoi-Ying Holman (Berkeley Lab)
Phil Huie (Stanford Univ.)

Beamline 7.3.1.1
Harald Ade (North Carolina State Univ.)

Beamline 7.3.3
Roger Falcone and coworkers (Univ. of California, Berkeley)

Beamline 8.0.1
Lou Terminello (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)
Ernst Kurmaev (Russian Academy of Sciences)

Beamline 10.0.1
Andrew Yencha (State Univ. of New York-Albany)
François Wuilleumier (Univ. Paris-Sud)

Beamline 10.3.1
Christoph Flink (Berkeley Lab)
Tom Cahill and coworkers (Univ. of California, Davis)

6. OPERATIONS UPDATE
(Contact: EJLampo@lbl.gov)

Beam reliability for the last two weeks (April 10 to 23) was 97% for user shifts. There were no significant outages.

Long-term and weekly operations schedules are available on the Web (http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/accelinfo.html). Requests for special operations use of the "scrubbing" shift should be sent to Gary Krebs (GFKrebs@lbl.gov, x7727) by 1:00 p.m. Friday. 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.