1. LIGHT-SOURCE LEADERS NETWORK AT ALS
(Contacts: GFKrebs@lbl.gov, ZHussain@lbl.gov)

ALS Director Daniel Chemla hosted coordination meetings this month with his counterparts from the three other Department of Energy synchrotron light sources in the US. On Wednesday, March 13, Daniel met with J. Murray Gibson, Associate Laboratory Director for the Advanced Photon Source (APS), and Steven Dierker, Chairman of the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS). The meeting provided an excellent opportunity to discuss how the various facilities can work together to ensure that the needs of the synchtroton community are met effectively and efficiently.

Discussion was prompted by a series of talks on subjects of interest. Howard Padmore (Experimental Systems Group) gave a presentation on a national initiative for synchrotron detector research and development. Erik Anderson (Center for X-Ray Optics) described the Nanowriter, an ultra-high-resolution electron-beam lithography machine. Thomas Earnest (Berkeley Center for Structural Biology) spoke about protein crystallography, and Robert Schoenlein (Materials Sciences Division) addressed the topic of femtosecond science. Neville Smith (ALS Division Deputy for Science) and Zahid Hussain (Scientific Support Group) took the guests on a tour of the ALS experiment floor.

The group lunched with Berkeley Lab Director Charles Shank, and dinner was also attended by Keith Hodgson, Director of the Stanford Synchtrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL). Although Hodgson was unfortunately unable to attend Wednesday's sessions, he was present on Friday, March 15, for an ALS/SSRL Coordination Meeting at the ALS. These annual meetings between the managers of the ALS and SSRL are intended to foster a strong, cooperative relationship between the two West-Coast facilities. Last year's meeting was held at SSRL. Agenda items for this meeting included conference coordination, timing of shutdowns, collaboration on users' meetings and workshops, funding strategies, research and development projects with potential for cooperation, and software compatibility.

2. COMING SOON TO THE ALS: "THE HULK"

Cast and crew members for an upcoming movie based on the Marvel Comics character, The Incredible Hulk, will be filming at the ALS and other Bay Area locations next month. The role of scientist Bruce Banner will be played by Eric Bana ("Black Hawk Down"). Other cast members include Academy Award winner Jennifer Connelly ("A Beautiful Mind"), Sam Elliott, and Nick Nolte. The Hulk himself will be a special-effects creation of the Industrial Light and Magic division of Lucasfilm, Ltd. Ang Lee, whose "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" won the 2001 Academy Award for best foreign language film, will direct. Lee, who had visited Berkeley Lab earlier to scout for locations, was said to be fascinated by the intricacies of the ALS interior and the Lab's breathtaking views of the Bay Area.

The filming will primarily take place over a weekend during the ALS's April shutdown, and normal off-hours employee access to the Lab may be restricted for the duration of that weekend. The agreement with Universal Studios states that there will be no alteration of facilites or the environment and that no research will be disrupted. Berkeley Lab will be reimbursed for all costs incurred in the management and control of the project. The finished product is scheduled for release during the summer of 2003.

3. ALS AWARDS AND HONORS

The ALS is pleased to acknowledge those in its orbit whose achievements have been recognized through awards and honors. Congratulations on a job well done!

Christoph Bostedt, graduate-student member of the Beamline 8.0.1 participating research team, received a Materials Research Society (MRS) Silver Award at the society's Fall 2001 meeting. The MRS Graduate Student Awards are highly competitive and are intended to honor and encourage graduate students whose academic achievements and current materials research show a high order of excellence and distinction. Finalists for the awards participate in a special student-presentation judging session at one of the society's meetings. Criteria for selection include thoroughness of the work; originality and independence of the contribution; depth of understanding of the topic, methodologies, and context; and finally, promise for future achievement. Christoph is affiliated with the University of Hamburg, Germany, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). The work described in his winning paper, "Surface Passivation Effects of Deposited Ge-Nanocrystal Films Probed with Synchrotron Radiation," was also the subject of his award-winning student poster at the 2001 ALS Users' Meeting.

The 2000 ALS Activity Report received the highest-level "Distinguished" award in the Northern California Technical Communication Competition sponsored by the Society for Technical Communication (STC). The STC is a worldwide organization dedicated to advancing the arts and sciences of technical communication. It sponsors several annual competitions to recognize distinguished work and to hold up quality standards against which the best work should be measured. Of the four award levels (Achievement, Merit, Excellence, and Distinguished), Distinguished is the highest, exemplifying outstanding technical communication that not only "hits all the marks," but also introduces an innovative approach or a positive surprise. The production team for the 2000 ALS Activity Report was led by Annette Greiner, member of the ALS Technical Information Section and Berkeley Lab's Technical and Electronic Information Department (TEID). Team members included Art Robinson (ALS); Liz Moxon, Lori Tamura, and Greg Vierra (ALS/TEID); Alice Ramirez, Denise Allen, Flavio Robles, Cheryl Ventimiglia, Robert Couto, and Faye Jobes (TEID). Also recognized with an "Excellence" award was the ICESS8 conference web site (http://www-als.lbl.gov/icess/), produced by Annette Greiner, Greg Vierra, Kim Hallock (LLNL), and Chuck Fadley (Univ. of California, Davis).

4. REGISTER NOW FOR MOLECULAR FOUNDRY WORKSHOP
(Contact: MDAlper@lbl.gov)

A workshop to plan for Berkeley Lab's Molecular Foundry will be held at the Lab on April 4-5, 2002. The Molecular Foundry will be a multidisciplinary user facility for nanoscience researchers from academia, industry, and government. The registration deadline is this Friday, March 29; after that date, late registrations will be accepted on an "as available" basis and subject to late registration fees. Don't miss the opportunity to learn about this exciting new development and to contribute your ideas during this critical planning stage. To register, go to the workshop Web site at foundry.lbl.gov.

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

For the user runs of March 14 - 18 and 19 - 24, the beam reliability (time delivered/time scheduled) was 98%. Of the scheduled beam, 89% 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.

LBNL/PUB-863
Editors: lstamura@lbl.gov, alrobinson@lbl.gov, amgreiner@lbl.gov

This work was supported by the Director, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC03-76SF00098.