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. 39           October 31, 1995

Table of Contents


    1. HAPPY HALLOWEEN AND ANNIVERSARY!
    2. OPERATIONS UPDATE
    3. CALL FOR INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATOR PROPOSALS
    4. HIGHLIGHTS FROM ALS USERS' ASSOCIATION ANNUAL MEETING

1. HAPPY HALLOWEEN AND ANNIVERSARY!

This issue of ALSNews marks both Halloween and the first anniversary of ALSNews. We're celebrating the former occasion by dressing our Operations Update section in a new costume. Please let us know what you think of the change; we'll do our best to give you this information in a format that works well for you.

This first-anniversary issue of ALSNews will be delivered by email to over 550 subscribers in 27 countries, and many others will access it on the World Wide Web.

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

Operations Summary for October 31 - November 22

Oct 31, 00:00-24:00           Accelerator Physics
Nov 01, 00:00-08:00           Scrubbing & Tests (see item below)
Nov 01, 08:00- Nov 06, 08:00  1.5-GeV/400-mA/320-bunch user operations
Nov 06, 08:00-24:00           Maintenance & Startup
Nov 07, 00:00-24:00           Accelerator Physics
Nov 08, 00:00-08:00           Scrubbing & Tests
Nov 08, 08:00- Nov 13, 08:00  1.9-GeV/260-mA/320-bunch user operations
Nov 13, 08:00-24:00           Maintenance & Startup
Nov 14, 00:00-24:00           Accelerator Physics
Nov 15, 00:00-08:00           Scrubbing & Tests
Nov 15, 08:00- Nov 22, 24:00  1.5-GeV/400-mA/320-bunch user operations

** CORRECTION AND CLARIFICATION: SCRUBBING SHIFTS **
(contact: rmmiller@lbl.gov)

In the last issue of ALSNews, we stated incorrectly that the new, full-time operations schedule included 15 shifts per week for user operations. In fact, there are 16 shifts per week for users. The first shift of each user period, called Scrubbing & Tests, is a time when users can request beam scrubbing (typically with lower current than normal operations) or special test conditions for new experiment setups. If there are no requests for scrubbing, operations for this shift revert to the same mode as the other shifts that day. Scrubbing requests are made at the weekly operations scheduling meetings, which take place on Fridays at 3:30 p.m. in the Building 6 conference room.

3. CALL FOR INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATOR PROPOSALS

The ALS has two cycles per year for soliciting proposals from scientists who wish to conduct research at the facility as independent investigators: April-September and October-March. The next submission deadline is December 1, 1995, for beamtime between April 1996 and September 1996.

To request a proposal form, contact:
Elizabeth Saucier, ALS User Administrator
Tel: (510) 486-6166
Fax: (510) 486-4960
Email: alsuser@lbl.gov

For beamline and PRT information, contact:
Fred Schlachter, ALS Scientific Outreach
Tel: (510) 486-4892
Fax: (510) 486-4960
Email: fred_schlachter@lbl.gov

4. HIGHLIGHTS FROM ALS USERS' ASSOCIATION ANNUAL MEETING

Almost 200 attendees turned out for the eighth annual meeting of the ALS Users' Association at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on October 23 and 24 to glimpse the latest scientific results from the growing number of ALS beamlines and to hear some hopeful words about the still unresolved prospects for federal science funding for the fiscal year that started on October 1. Each day featured a lengthy lunch break with time to visit the ALS, view vendor exhibits, and peruse user poster presentations. A barbecue at nearby Tilden Park was punctuated by awards to users and staff. Jeff Kortright and Marybeth Rice of LBNL's Center for X-Ray Optics, with Keith Franck of the ALS Mechanical Engineering Group, won this year's Klaus Halbach Award for their development of polarizing multilayer optics and the use of these optics to study magnetic materials (see ALSNews Vol. 31, 7/11/95). The meeting was followed on October 25 by an informal half-day workshop on ways to do timing experiments with minimum disruption to other users.

Laboratory Director Charles Shank set the tone for the users' meeting by putting the emphasis on what science has already been done using the high brightness of this third-generation light source rather than on what could be done, the theme for previous meetings when the ALS was under construction or being commissioned. He also referred to the strong interest in making the ALS as user friendly as possible in every way. The scientific talks indeed followed Shank's theme. After an overview of first results with the x-ray microscope on the ESCA microscopy beamline at ELETTRA by Maya Kiskinova of Sincrotrone Trieste, ALS users displayed their findings using both undulator and bend-magnet beamlines in atomic and molecular spectroscopy, materials physics, microscopy, interferometric testing of optics, and standards and calibration (see program in ALS News Vol. 38, 10/17/95).

ALS Director Brian Kincaid indicated that much more is to be expected in the coming years, not only because of the shift to operation seven days per week (see ALS News Vol. 38, 10/17/95), but also because additional beamlines will become available. These include beamlines for protein crystallography (summer 1996 for wiggler beamline 5.0), magnetic microscopy and spectroscopy (summer 1996 for bend-magnet beamline 7.3.1 and spring 1997 for elliptically polarizing undulator beamlines 4.0.1 and 4.0.2), and infrared microscopy (fall 1996 for bend-magnet beamline 3.4).

Undoubtedly on everyone's mind this year is the ongoing budget duel between the Clinton Administration and Congress. Michael Lubell of the City College of New York, who also serves as public affairs officer for the American Physical Society, noted in his review of the funding prospects for science that there is strong support for the Scientific Facilities Utilization Initiative in both the Senate and House appropriations bills that cover the Department of Energy research, so a budget should be available this year. Bill Oosterhuis of DOE's Office of Basic Energy Sciences, which supports operation of the ALS, reported that DOE has already issued an initial guideline for FY 1996 planning purposes that includes a $6.2 million increase for the ALS. In addition, Oosterhuis announced that a request for proposals for major instrumentation at the user facilities will be issued soon with awards possible early in 1996. Tom Weber of the National Science Foundation predicted a level or slightly decreased (1 to 1.5%) budget for NSF's Division of Materials Research. Over the next five years, Weber expected further declines and stiffer competition for grants.