|
Roger Falcone
named
new ALS director
 Roger
Falcone, a physicist whose specialty is the use of ultrafast
pulses of x-ray and laser light to study phenomena in condensed-matter,
molecular, and atomic physics, has been named the new director
of the ALS. His appointment becomes effective on September
1. "I look forward to working to maintain our excellent
current programs, and growing new programs in response to
the needs of the scientific community," Falcone said.
"Directors Janos Kirz and Daniel Chemla have done an
exceptional job of getting us to where we are now, and I plan
to carry on in their tradition." Falcone is a veteran
user of the ALS who served as chair of the Users' Executive
Committee in 2002 and became a faculty staff scientist at
the ALS in 2004. He was the co-author, along with Robert Schoenlein,
of the proposal for the Ultrafast X-Ray Facility at Beamlines
6.0.1
and 6.0.2
and also serves as a consultant for the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory and chairs the science advisory committee
for the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), now being built
at Stanford.
"Roger Falcone has been a leader
in the fields of ultrafast science and x-ray studies of advanced
materials," said Berkeley Lab director Steven Chu in
announcing the appointment. "He has a broad understanding
of the fields of interest to the ALS user community and is
extremely well poised to lead the ALS into the future of soft
x-ray science and technology. As former chair of the Physics
Department at UC Berkeley, Roger has proven leadership experience.
We look forward to a wonderful and exciting new era at the
ALS under his direction."
Read the full
announcement.
In memoriam:
ALS scientific
director Neville Smith
 Along
with the good news of the selection of our next ALS director,
ALSNews must report, with great sadness, that our scientific
director, Neville Smith, died at his home in Berkeley of cancer
on August 18, at the age of 64.
Neville had a long association with the
ALS, including a number of "firsts." A native of
England and a graduate of the University of Cambridge, he
became a leading authority in the field of photoemission spectroscopy
while a member of the scientific staff of AT&T Bell Laboratories.
Accordingly, he was tapped to serve on the original ALS Users'
Executive Committee, where he oversaw the development of the
ALS user policy as well as the Users' Association charter.
Subsequently, he was chair of the first Program Review Panel
that selected the first participating research teams. In 1994
after 25 years at Bell Labs, he came to the ALS as the first
scientific program head.
Under his leadership, the ALS scientific
program has thrived. Said Patricia Dehmer, Associate Director
of Science for DOE's Office of Basic Energy Sciences, "As
its scientific director, Neville shepherded the Advanced Light
Source to international prominence making it one of the most
scientifically productive and important facilities in the
world. Moreover, his wisdom, maturity, innovativeness, and
diplomacy made him a leader in the national and international
light source community."
Neville is survived by his wife Elizabeth
(Betsy), two daughters, Katherine (Kaci), and Elizabeth (Libby),
a daughter-in-law, Arin, and a sister Kathleen France, who
lives in England. There will be no funeral, but a memorial
service to celebrate Neville's life will be held later in
the fall.
Read more
about Neville's life and career.
Parallel and
antiparallel interfacial
coupling in AF–FM bilayers
Cooling an antiferromagnetic–ferromagnetic
bilayer in a magnetic field typically results in a remanent
(zero-field) magnetization in the ferromagnet (FM) that is
always in the direction of the field during cooling (positive
Mrem). Strikingly, when FeF2 is the antiferromagnet
(AF), cooling in a field can lead to a remanent magnetization
opposite to the field (negative Mrem). A collaboration led
by researchers from the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory
working at ALS elliptically polarizing undulator Beamline
4.0.2
has verified a proposed explanation involving a small magnetic
moment at the AF interface, but in the process also found
both positive and negative moments and a way to distinguish
them. Full
story.
Publication about this research: H. Ohldag,
H. Shi, E. Arenholz, J. Stöhr, and D. Lederman, "Parallel
versus antiparallel interfacial coupling in exchange-biased
Co/FeF2 bilayers," Phys. Rev. Lett. 96,
027203 (2006).
Contact: Hendrik Ohldag, Hohldag@ssrl.slac.stanford.edu
First direct
observation
of spinons and holons
Spin and charge are inseparable traits
of an electron, but in one-dimensional solids, a 40-year-old
theory predicts their separation into "collective"
modes—as independent excitation quanta called spinons
and holons. Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES)
should provide the most direct evidence of this spin–charge
separation, as the single quasiparticle peak splits into a
spinon–holon two-peak structure. However, despite extensive
ARPES experiments, the unambiguous observation of the two-peak
structure has remained elusive. Working at the ALS, a team
of researchers from Korea, Japan, and the U.S. has now observed
electron spin–charge separation in a one-dimensional
solid. These results hold implications for future developments
in several key areas of advanced technology, including high-temperature
superconductors, nanowires, and spintronics. Full
story.
Publication about this research: B.J.
Kim, H. Koh, E. Rotenberg, S.-J. Oh, H. Eisaki, N. Motoyama,
S. Uchida, T. Tohyama, S. Maekawa, Z.-X. Shen, and C. Kim,
"Distinct spinon and holon dispersions in photoemission
spectral functions from one-dimensional SrCuO2,"
Nature Physics 2, 397 (2006).
Contact: Changyoung Kim, cykim@phya.yonsei.ac.kr
ALS Doctoral
Fellowship
winners announced
 Nine
students have been selected to receive ALS Doctoral Fellowships
for 2006–2007: Matthew Brown (Univ. of California, Irvine),
chemistry/surface science; Ileana Dumitriu (Western Michigan
Univ.), atomic physics; Muhammad Hossain (Univ. of British
Columbia), condensed matter, spectroscopy; Zhiqiang Li (Univ.
of California, San Diego), physics; Zhihui Pan (Boston College),
strongly correlated electrons; Cheng Wang (North Carolina
State Univ.), soft condensed matter; Jie Wu (Univ. of California,
Berkeley), condensed matter physics; Xiaowei Yu (Stanford
Univ.), physics: magnetism; and Shuyun Zhou (Univ. of California,
Berkeley), condensed matter.
These exceptional Ph.D. students have
been selected to perform a major part of their thesis work
at the ALS during a one-year appointment covering the 2006–2007
academic year. For Dumitriu, Li, and Pan, this will be a continuation
of their fellowship grants from last year. Congratulations
to all nine!
The selection committee consisted of
SAC chair Samuel Bader (Argonne National Laboratory), UEC
chair Clemens Heske (Univ. of Nevada, Las Vegas), Carolyn
Larabell (Berkeley Lab, Physical Biosciences Division), Zahid
Hussain (ALS), and Neville Smith (ALS). Detailed information
about the Fellowships
can be found online.
Contact: Zahid Hussain, ZHussain@lbl.gov
Users' Meeting
update: Program
information posted
 Program
Information. The annual ALS Users' Meeting will be
held at Berkeley Lab from Monday, October 9, through Wednesday,
October 11, 2006. The meeting Web site has been updated with
the latest program information, including a tentative agenda
and short descriptions of the workshops from their respective
organizers. The public science lecture scheduled for Monday
evening, October 9, will be given by Carolyn Larabell, Director
of the National Center for X-Ray Tomography, which is constructing
the XM-2 high-resolution soft x-ray microscope at Beamline
2.1.
Award Nominations. The
awards banquet on Tuesday evening, October 10, will be the
time to recognize those who have gone out of their way to
contribute to the success of the scientific and user support
programs at the ALS. Please take a moment to consider nominating
users and staff for any of the following awards: the David
A. Shirley Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement at
the ALS, the Klaus Halbach Award for Innovative Instrumentation
at the ALS, or the Tim Renner User Services Award for Outstanding
Support to the ALS User Community. Nominations
can be submitted online.
Deadline Reminders.
The deadline to reserve a room at the Hotel Durant at the
discounted rate is September 8. To qualify for the meeting's
early registration rate you must register by September 15.
To guarantee a space in the poster session and be included
in the program booklet, or to be considered for the student
poster competition, you must submit an abstract by September
15. Award nominations may be submitted up until October 1.
For more detailed information, go to
the ALS
Users' Meeting Web site.
Contact: alsum@lbl.gov
UEC elections:
Call for recommendations/nominations
The UEC charter specifies two methods
for generating a list of candidates: (1) the UEC's Nominating
Committee is charged with selecting a slate of candidates
based on recommendations from the membership, and (2) members
of the ALS Users' Association can nominate candidates by petition
before and during the annual Users' Meeting by submitting
each nominee's name to the UEC over the signatures of at least
five Association members. The UEC chair, Clemens Heske, is
currently accepting recommendations from members at heske@unlv.nevada.edu.
For more information, go to the UEC
Election Web site.
|
