A conversation with Interim ALS Director Andreas Scholl and Interim ALS-U Project Director Dimitri Argyriou. Learn more about their collaborative strategies and priorities for the ALS update project in 2025. Watch or access free transcript below.
Full Transcript:
Andreas: Welcome to the ALS.
Dimitri: We’re today’s discoveries are the foundation for tomorrow’s breakthroughs, and we have a lot more on for 2025.
Andreas: So we are really excited at the ALS about the upgrade, the plans for the next year. We’re gonna get a new accelerator. We’re getting new beamlines. So what is the project up to next year?
Dimitri: So, we have a big road in front of us. What is important at the moment is to prepare the team for what is coming up ahead. The most exciting thing is that we need to complete the accumulator ring. Actually, 80% of the ring is already installed.
Dimitri: We have to connect, you know, some of the electrical systems. We have to bring some of the rafts. But we are on the trajectory that if we do things well, by the end of calendar 25, we would have most of that installation complete. And then we’re looking forward to actually putting beam in the new accelerator, in the accumulator ring, in 2026. But after that, we’re getting ready for the installation of the storage ring, and that is a much more complicated accelerator to complete.
Dimitri: We’re still working through the design of that. We have awarded a lot of the contracts that will build the stowage ring. But we have to work hard, focus the team, make sure that the team has all that they need, to complete that design, and get ready for ductile. So, Andreas, from where you sit, what do you think are some of the challenges or opportunities in front of us for the next few years in working together as ALS and ALS-U?
Andreas: We have a tremendously complex facility already. We have a storage ring. We have beamlines, and we are an operating facility. We’re running lots of user experiments every day, which means that when we are doing surgery on the ring, we’re placing a lot of the infrastructure that needs a lot of coordination. And, of course, that means that, all the planning that goes into, replacing the storage ring, replacing the beam lines, upgrading, a lot of our infrastructure, That can only be done when we are working together, the project team, the ALS team. And, so that is the plant that we are developing at the moment.
Andreas: The idea that, as one ALS, we are building this new facility together at the location of an existing running facility. And, this is challenging. It’s not easy to do, but we also have good teams, teams that are pretty familiar with the floor, with our safety procedures, with all our processes, so we conduct projects. And, so we are at this moment, we’re developing these plans, and I’m looking forward to how they are being really developed and then executed.
Dimitri:I’m also very encouraged with how our teams work together. I think they have really embraced the one ALS spirit, and I think we’ll need to help them to do more of it. Thanks.