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.

Previous Issues are available.


ALSNews           Vol.1          November 1, 1994

Table of Contents


    1. ADMINISTRIVIA 
    2. OPERATIONS UPDATE 
    3. BEAMLINE  6.1.2 - ZONE PLATE MICROSCOPE PRODUCES FIRST IMAGE 
    4. BEAMLINE  10.3.2 - LIGA WORK UNDERWAY 
    5. ALS USERS' MEETING DRAWS A RECORD CROWD 

1. ADMINISTRIVIA
(contact: alsnews@lbl.gov)

Welcome to the premier issue of ALSNews, an electronic newsletter dedicated to issues concerning users of the Advanced Light Source. ALSNews was created in an attempt to disseminate information more effectively about the ALS to our geographically scattered user community. The focus will be information related to the short and long-term operating schedules of the ALS, and other activities and developments of interest to the user community. ALSNews is intended to augment rather than replace the existing means of communication between the user community and the ALS.

This trial issue of ALSNews is being sent to a standard distribution list of people we thought might be interested in subscribing. To be placed on the permanent newsletter distribution list, please email jccross@lbl.gov and include your complete email address. We would also appreciate receiving suggestions for the information or topics you would like to see covered in ALSNews.

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

Operations for the week of October 30 thru November 5 will include normal eight hour maintenance period on Monday, accelerator physics work on Tuesday, and nine user shifts on Wednesday thru Friday with the standard 320 bunch 400 mA operation. Storage ring refills will normally be made at 200 mA and user operations for the week conclude at 11 pm Friday evening.

This week's accelerator physics activities include magnet ramping studies, resonance mapping, 1.9 GeV characterization, and studies in coordination with beamline 9.3.2 to look at beam stability and intensity effects.

3. BEAMLINE 6.1.2 - ZONE PLATE MICROSCOPE PRODUCES FIRST IMAGE
(contact:w_meyer-ilse@lbl.gov)

Beamline 6.1.2's high-resolution zone plate microscope, XM-1, produced its first image on October 5. Two days later, this image of an electron microscope grid used to align the XM-1 system was followed by images of red blood cells infected with the malaria parasite, with resolutions of better than 0.1 micron. The beamline integrates visible-light and x-ray microscopes for maximum resolution with minimum damage to samples, and its x-ray microscope is expected to achieve resolutions five times better than those available with visible light microscopy. These capabilities, along with the capacity to image much thicker samples than those accessible to an electron microscope, make XM-1 an excellent complement to existing methods of microscopy. The leader of the Beamline 6.1.2 participating research team is LBL's Werner Meyer-Ilse.

4. BEAMLINE 10.3.2 - LIGA WORK UNDERWAY
(contact: keith_jackson@lbl.gov)

Beamline 10.3.2 received its first light on October 24. Three days later, the deep-etch x-ray lithography techniques which will be a primary focus of beamline activity were already underway with a project to produce a 120-GHzmicroscale linear accelerator. The current "micro-linac" fabrication efforts being carried out by Paul Matthews and headed by Robert Kustom, both of Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), may lead to micro-linacs and micro-undulators for use at the Advanced Photon Source at ANL. Reid Brennen of Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who has played a major role in beamline development, will have the next beamtime to continue the manufacture of collimating grids for a high-energy x-ray telescope being developed at JPL. Another project coming up soon is a collaboration with IBM to manufacture suspension arms for hard disk drives, with a focus on miniaturization. The Beamline 10.3.2 PRT includes members from LBL, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratory (California).

5. ALS USERS' MEETING DRAWS A RECORD CROWD
(contact: jccross@lbl.gov)

The opportunity to hear about the exceptional science already emerging from the ALS user program drew a record crowd of over 250 attendees to the Annual Meeting of the Advanced Light Source Users' Association held October 20-21 at LBL. The first day included several talks by current users who presented ample evidence that the promises of "unique research opportunities" and "experiments not possible anywhere else" made at the inception of the ALS are indeed coming true. Friday's theme was future scientific opportunities at the ALS such as protein crystallography and polymer microscopy. During the lunchtime breaks, everyone gravitated to the ALS experiment floor to get a closeup view of the beamlines and discuss new products with the 28 vendors who set up exhibits on the experiment floor. An informal workshop on "Infrared Microspectroscopy with Synchrotron Radiation" chaired by Gwyn Williams of Brookhaven National Laboratory was held at the conclusion of the meeting to discuss the possibility of building an infrared beamline at the ALS. Infrared spectromicroscopy is useful for the study of a wide range of problems in materials science and has many industrial applications.