ALSNews Vol. 234, November 12, 2003
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.
Table of Contents
- Study Reveals Orbital Mixing Between Water and Dissovled Ions
- DOE Secretary Announces 20-Year Science Facility Plan
- ALS Division Review Begins Today
- Reminder: General Sciences Proposals Due December 1
- Reminder: UEC Election Ends November 21
- Who's in Town: A Sampling of ALS Users
- Operations Update
1. STUDY REVEALS ORBITAL MIXING BETWEEN WATER AND
DISSOLVED IONS
by Lori Tamura
(Contacts: lgm@physto.se, nilsson@SLAC.Stanford.EDU)
The essential role of water as a solvent in chemistry and biology is closely connected to the chemical interactions between dissolved ions and the water molecules immediately surrounding them (the "first hydration shell"). However, selectively measuring the electronic structure of such water molecules out of all the molecules in the solution has been a formidable challenge. With recent developments in soft x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) applied to liquids under ambient conditions, such measurements are now possible. By combining these measurements, taken at ALS Beamline 8.0.1, with density functional theory (DFT) calculations, researchers from Sweden and the U.S. have demonstrated that the molecular orbitals of the water molecules in the first hydration shell will mix with the d orbitals of a dissolved transition-metal ion, resulting in characteristic pre-edge features in the oxygen 1s XAS spectrum. The technique is sensitive enough to easily detect an additional chlorine ion in the hydration shell.
Read the full story at
http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/science/sci_archive/67orbitmix.html.
Publication about this research: L.-Å. Näslund, M. Cavalleri, H. Ogasawara, A. Nilsson, L.G.M. Pettersson, P. Wernet, D.C. Edwards, M. Sandström, and S. Myneni, "Direct Evidence of Orbital Mixing between Solvated Transition-Metal Ions: An Oxygen 1s XAS and DFT Study of Aqueous Systems," J. Phys. Chem. A, 107, 6869 (2003).
2. DOE SECRETARY ANNOUNCES 20-YEAR SCIENCE FACILITY PLAN
U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham on Monday outlined the Department of Energy's Office of Science 20-year science facility plan, a roadmap for future scientific facilities to support the department's basic science and research missions. The plan prioritizes new, major scientific facilities and upgrades to current facilities. The 28 facilities cover the range of science supported by the DOE's Office of Science, including fusion energy, materials science, biological and environmental science, high energy physics, nuclear physics, and advanced scientific computation.
DOE's Office of Science prepared the list over the last year with input from the scientific community, DOE laboratories, and advisory committees. In brief, Office of Science program managers first identified 46 facilities they believed are required for world scientific leadership over the next 20 years. Six independent advisory committees reviewed the facilities, recommended 53 facilities for construction, and assessed each according to two criteria: scientific importance and readiness for construction. Dr. Raymond L. Orbach, director of the Office of Science, prioritized the facilities across the scientific disciplines.
The list identifies 12 facilities as near-term priorities, eight facilities as midterm priorities, and eight as far-term priorities. The Linac Coherent Light Source is one of four facilities tied for near-term priority three. Upgrades to the National Synchrotron Light Source, the ALS, and the Advanced Photon Source, were all included as far-term priorities.
Links to Secretary Abraham's speech as well as a PDF version of the full report can be found at http://www.sc.doe.gov/Sub/Facilities_for_future/facilities_future.htm.
3. ALS DIVISION REVIEW BEGINS TODAY
(Contact: NVSmith@lbl.gov)
Today and tomorrow, the ALS will be presenting itself for review by a panel of experts from industry, academia, other national laboratories, and other synchrotron light sources. It is the third Berkeley Lab Director's Review of the ALS since it became a stand-alone laboratory division in 1997. Erwin Poliakoff (Louisiana State Univ.) will chair the review committee. Other committee members are Juan Carlos Campuzano (Univ. of Illinois at Chicago), John Hemminger (Univ. of California, Irvine), Eric Isaacs (Argonne National Laboratory), Janos Kirz (Stony Brook University), Hans Koufal (IBM), Peter Moore (Yale Univ.), and Jim Murphy (National Synchrotron Light Source).
Neville Smith will brief the panel on the growth of the ALS science program, and David Robin will provide an update on accelerator and upgrade developments. Ben Feinberg will provide an LDRD report and Steve Leone will discuss the LUX project. A selection of users will present overviews of their work: Alessandra Lanzara (Univ. of California, Berkeley, correlated materials), Richard Saykally (Univ. of California, Berkeley, x-ray spectroscopy of the liquid water surface), Dennis Lindle (Univ. of Nevada, Las Vegas, atomic, molecular, and optical physics), Jo Stohr (Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, magnetic nanostructures and their dynamics), and Gerry McDermott (Berkeley Lab, protein crystallography). In addition, members of the committee will be given a tour of the facility and have lunch with representatives of the Users' Executive Committee.
4. REMINDER: GENERAL SCIENCES PROPOSALS DUE DECEMBER
1
(Contact: alsproposals@lbl.gov)
The User Services Office is still accepting general user proposals from scientists who wish to conduct research in the general sciences at the ALS during the running period from June to November 2004. The deadline for submissions is December 1, 2003. (This deadline does not apply to protein crystallography proposals, which have a separate process and schedule.) Scientists wishing to renew a previous proposal must download the one-page "ALS Experiment Report and Request for Beamtime" form (see links below) and submit it to the User Services Office by the December 1 deadline. Proposals cannot be renewed for more than three cycles after they are first submitted. The following resources are available for further information:
ALS User Services Administrator
alsuser@lbl.gov
General user proposal process
http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/quickguide/independinvest.html
ALS General Sciences Proposal and Request for Beamtime
http://alsusweb.lbl.gov/4DCGI/WEB_GetForm/Page1P.shtml/Initialize
ALS Experiment Report and Request for Beamtime (renewal form)
http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/quickguide/expt_report.rtf
Beamline information
http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/als_users_bl/datasheets.html
http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/als_users_bl/bl_table.html
Proposal Study Panel (PSP) scores
http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/quickguide/pspscores.html
5. REMINDER: UEC ELECTION ENDS NOVEMBER 21
(Contact: AMGreiner@lbl.gov)
The Users' Executive Committee (UEC) election is now in progress. Submit your vote online by going to the UEC election Web site at http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/uec/vote/ and clicking on "Vote." More information about the election can be found at the site. Voting is to take place October 21 to November 21, and the results will be announced November 25.
6. 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
Hoi-Ying Holman (Berkeley Lab)
Ted Raab (Carnegie Institution of Washington)
Beamline 4.0.2
Chuck Fadley (Univ. of California, Davis, and Berkeley Lab)
Kai Liu (Univ. of California, Davis)
Jo Stohr (Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory)
Beamlines 5.0.1, 5.0.2, 5.0.3
Timothy Wood, David Barondeau (The Scripps Research Institute)
Sergio Martinez (Univ. of Washington)
Ernst Ter Haar (Vertex Pharmaceuticals)
Jinsong Liu, Athena Sudom, Olga Plotnikova, Zhulun Wang (Tularik, Inc.)
Deborah Mitchell, Novelle Kimmich, Jessica Schulz, Tyler Korman, John
Purdon, Yicheng Hwang (Univ. of California, Irvine)
Mark Robien, Isolde Le Trong, Gye Won Han (Univ. of Washington)
Dominique Toppani, Brent Segelke, Timothy Lekin, Evan Bursey (TB Structural
Genomics Consortium)
Mark Knapp, Armando Villasenor (Roche Bioscience)
Daniel Knighton, Robert Love, Hans Parge, Thomas Pauly, Samantha Greasley
(Pfizer, Inc.)
Xiaoping Dai, Xueyong Zhu, Lan Xu, Dennis Wolan (The Scripps Research
Institute)
Beamline 5.3.2
Adam Hitchcock (McMaster Univ., Canada)
Gary Mitchell (The Dow Chemical Company)
Stephen Urquhart (Univ. of Saskatchewan, Canada)
Harald Ade (North Carolina State Univ.)
Daniel Guay (Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, Canada)
Beamline 6.1.2
Greg Denbeaux (State Univ. of New York, Albany)
Beamline 6.3.1
Krystyna Jablonska (Polish Academy of Sciences)
Beamline 7.0.1
Jim Tobin (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)
Karsten Horn (Fritz-Haber-Institute, Germany)
Joseph Nordgren (Uppsala Univ., Sweden)
Beamline 7.3.1.1
Luc Thomas (IBM Almaden Research Center)
Z.Q. Qiu (Univ. of California, Berkeley)
Beamline 8.0.1
Dan Dessau (Univ. of Colorado at Boulder)
Jeffrey Kortright (Berkeley Lab)
Richard Saykally (Univ. of California, Berkeley)
Beamlines 8.2.1, 8.2.2
Mark Robien, Isolde Le Trong, Gye Won Han (Univ. of Washington)
Ti Li, Sergio Martinez (Univ. of Washington)
Feng Guo, Anne Gooding, Aidong Han, Alexei Kazantsev (Univ. of Colorado
at Boulder)
Duilio Cascio, Sum Chan, Michael Sawaya, Salem Faham, Sarah Yohannan (Univ.
of California, Los Angeles)
Beamline 8.3.1
Bill Harries, Shahram Khademi, David Akhavan (Univ. of Califonia, San
Francisco)
Ho-Leung Ng (Univ. of California Berkeley)
Emmanuel Skordalakes (Univ. of California, Berkeley)
Xiaoping Dai, Xueyong Zhu, Lan Xu, Dennis Wolan (The Scripps Research
Institute)
Magnar Bjoras, Ottar Sundheim (The Scripps Research Institute)
Hu Pan (Univ. of California, San Francisco)
Hector Aldaz (Univ. of California, San Francisco)
Adrian Keatinge-Clay (Univ. of California, San Francisco)
Evette Radisky (Univ. of California, Berkeley)
Anton Vila-Sanjurjo, Barbara Schuwirth (Univ. of California, Berkeley)
Beamline 9.0.1
John Spence (Berkeley Lab)
Beamline 9.3.2
Piero Pianetta (Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory)
Frank Ogletree (Berkeley Lab)
Philip Ross (Berkeley Lab)
Beamline 10.3.2
Alain Manceau (Univ. Joseph Fourier, France)
Deborah Aruguete (Berkeley Lab)
7. OPERATIONS UPDATE
(Contact: Lampo@lbl.gov)
Jan Pusina will be the new Operations group leader, replacing Bruce "Sam" Samuelson, who retired this month. For the user runs of October 28 - November 2 (1.5-GeV operation) and November 5 - 10, the beam reliability (time delivered/time scheduled) was 98%. Of the scheduled beam, 96% 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/schedules/index.html). Requests for special operations use of the "scrubbing" shift should be sent to Jan Pusina (ALS-CR@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. A Web page showing the ring status in real time can be found at http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/status/.
ALSNews is a biweekly electronic newsletter to keep users informed about developments at the Advanced Light Source, a national user facility located at Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California. To be placed on the mailing list, send your email address to ALSNews@lbl.gov. We welcome suggestions for topics and content. Submissions are due the Friday before the issue date.
LBNL/PUB-875
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.