1. LAST CALL FOR PHYSICAL SCIENCES PROPOSALS
(Contact: alsproposals@lbl.gov)

Friday, December 1, 2000, is the deadline for independent investigator proposals in the physical sciences for the running period from May to November 2001. The online proposal form, the ALS Experiment Report and Request for Beamtime form (for renewals), and information on the proposal process 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. As was noted in the previous edition of ALSNews (http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/als_news/news_archive/vol.165_111500.html), a new, more equitable scoring procedure will be implemented during this proposal cycle. The numeric rating for each proposal will be communicated to the investigator along with comments from the Proposal Study Panel. 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.

2. WASHINGTON WORKSHOP PAVES WAY FOR NEW DETECTOR DEVELOPMENT
by Lori Tamura
(Contact: hapadmore@lbl.gov)

Over 70 participants from the U.S., Europe, and Japan met in Washington, DC, on October 30-31, 2000, to attend the Workshop on Detectors for Synchrotron Radiation Research sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science. Representatives of various synchrotron facilities, along with experts in synchrotron detector technology and funding agency representatives, convened to lay the groundwork for a more focused and integrated program of detector development in this country. Workshop organizers noted that current detector technologies do not fully capitalize on the advantages of third-generation light sources, and the increasing sophistication of experiments calls for more sophisticated detectors. Microelectronics tools now becoming available promise to revolutionize detector technology, but the complexity of developing the new technology is outgrowing the capacity of existing infrastructure. The goal of this workshop was to generate a roadmap for synchrotron detector development that will guide U.S. efforts in this area over the next ten years.

The first day of the workshop began with research highlights supporting the scientific case for improved detectors and ended with presentations on the possibilities for the next generation of synchrotron detectors. The second day was devoted to working-group discussions on specific types of detectors (CCD, infrared, ultrafast, pixellated, etc.). A written report on the workshop will be peer-reviewed and published in a special issue of the Journal of Synchrotron Radiation. In addition, participants are collaborating on a white paper for Patricia Dehmer, Associate Director of the DOE's Office of Basic Energy Sciences. The white paper will propose, among other things, that the DOE fund detector upgrades that use today's technology and, most importantly, make a commitment to long-range strategic research. Such a commitment would include a focused call for proposals to establish substantial long-range research efforts in a number of key areas. Once established, the groups assigned to these areas would be responsible for making technology available to the rest of the U.S. synchrotron community and for technology transfer to industry, if appropriate. Howard Padmore of the ALS is coordinating the writing of the white paper; to provide input, contact him at 510-486-5787 or hapadmore@lbl.gov.

3. RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Forde, N.R., L.J. Butler, B.M. Ruscic, O. Sorkhabi, F. Qi, and A.G. Suits, "Characterization of nitrogen-containing radical products from the photodissociation of trimethylamine using photoionization detection," J. Chem. Phys. 113(8), 3088 (August 2000).

Galakhov, V.R., L.D. Finkelstein, E.Z. Kurmaev, D.A. Zatsepin, A.A. Samokhvalov, S.V. Naumov, G.K. Tatarinova, M. Demeter, S. Bartkowski, M. Neumann, and A.P. Moewes, "Interaction of Cu 3d and O 2p states in Mg[1-x]Cu[x]O solid solutions with NaCl structure: X-ray photoelectron and x-ray emission study," Phys. Rev. B 62(8), 4922 (August 2000).

Kukk, E., J.D. Bozek, and N. Berrah, "Photoexcitation and Auger decay of the Renner-Teller split C 1s^[-1]pi[u]* state in CO[2]," Phys. Rev. A 62(3), article no. 032708 (September 2000).

Liu, J., C.L. Smith, D. DeRyckere, K. DeAngelis, G.S. Martin, and J.M. Berger, "Structure and Function of Cdc6/Cdc18: Implications for Origin Recognition and Checkpoint Control," Mol. Cell 6, 637 (September 2000).

Liu, M.L., B.W. Shen, S. Nakaya, K.P. Pratt, K. Fujikawa, E.W. Davie, B.L. Stoddard, and A.R. Thompson, "Hemophilic factor VIII C1- and C2-domain missense mutations and their modeling to the 1.5-angstrom human C2-domain crystal structure," Blood 96(3), 979 (August 2000).

Luecke, H., "Atomic resolution structures of bacteriorhodopsin photocycle intermediates: The role of discrete water molecules in the function of this light-driven ion pump," Biochim. Biophys. Acta-Bioenergetics 1460(1), 133 (August 2000).

Ulagappan, N., and H. Frei, "Mechanistic study of CO[2] photoreduction in Ti silicalite molecular sieve by FT-IR spectroscopy," J. Phys. Chem. A 104(33), 7834 (August 2000).

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

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

Beamline 1.4.3
Phil Huie (Stanford Univ. Medical Center)
Hoi-Ying Holman (Berkeley Lab)
James Chesko (Chiron Corporation)
Ted Raab (Univ. of Colorado at Boulder)
Sherry Zhang and Phil Ross (Berkeley Lab)
Tom Breuning and Dan Fried (Univ. of California, San Francisco)

Beamline 5.3.1
Phil Heimann (Berkeley Lab)
Steve Johnson and Aaron Lindenberg (Univ. of California, Berkeley)

Beamline 7.3.1.1
Z.Q. Qiu (Univ. of California, Berkeley)

Beamline 8.0.1
Satish Myneni (Princeton Univ.)
Glenn Waychunas (Berkeley Lab)

Beamline 10.0.1
C. Cisneros, I. Alvarez (Univ. Nacional Autonoma de Mexico)
R. Phaneuf, A. Covington, G. Hinojosa, A. Aguilar, M. Gharaibeh (Univ. of Nevada, Reno)
M. Sant'Anna (Univ. Federal Fluminense, Brazil)
A. Schlachter (Berkeley Lab)
H. Eisaki, X.-J. Zhou, P. Bogdanov (Stanford Univ.)

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

For the user run of November 14 - 22, the beam availability was 97%. Of the scheduled beam, 86% was delivered to completion without interruption. 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 Bruce Samuelson (BCSamuelson@lbl.gov, x4738) 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.