Celebrating Success and Looking Forward in Challenging Times
ALS Director Roger Falcone took some time recently to reflect on the scientific and engineering accomplishments at the ALS while facing up to some of the challenges of the coming year. A difficult fiscal environment that features significant cuts in national scientific funding means that the ALS will have to reprioritize its programs and activities this year. Read more…
Ultrafast Transformations in Superionic Nanocrystals
Ultrafast x-ray studies reveal how superionic nanocrystals transform into the conducting phase, with the transformation time set by the speed limit for ions hopping through the lattice. Such materials could be used as solid-state electrolytes for novel batteries or in resistive switching devices. Read more…
New Spectroscopic Technique Reveals the Dynamics of Operating Battery Electrodes
ALS researchers have developed a new technique based on soft x-ray spectroscopy that could help scientists better understand and improve the materials required for high-performance lithium-ion batteries. The technique measures something never seen before: the migration of ions and electrons in an integrated, operating battery electrode. Read more…
The newest member of the Berkeley Center for Structural Biology team, Marc Allaire came to the ALS from Brookhaven National Laboratory, where he was responsible for running micro-crystallography beamlines and the small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) program. Read more…
Industry @ ALS: Genentech Uses ALS Crystallography for Therapeutic Antibody Research
Genentech has developed a unique one-armed antibody, onartuzumab, which is now in late-stage clinical trials in multiple cancer types. Genentech used crystal structures obtained at ALS Beamline 5.0.2 to demonstrate the mechanism of action of this unique potentially therapeutic antibody. Read more…
Who’s in the News: Visitors and Awards
This has been a busy time for awards: Howard Padmore received the prestigious AVS Albert Nerkin Award, Bob Schoenlein and Fernando Sannibale were elected APS fellows, ALS user Steve Cramer became an AAAS fellow, and Shuyun Zhou (left), a previous ALS postdoctoral fellow, received the “Outstanding Young Scholar Award” from Qiu Shi Science and Technology Foundation in Fall 2013.Read more about their accomplishments and their award citations.
Visitors included Steve Binkley, the new Associate Director of the Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program office and Mike Knotek, Deputy Undersecretary for Science and Energy; see Visitors for photos and more information.
Anyone wishing to speak about their current research for 15-20 minutes at the next café should contact Elizabeth Moxon.The event will be moderated by Roger Falcone; light refreshments will be provided.
UEC Corner
Help Us to Help You!
Happy New Year! I am privileged to be taking over as chair of the UEC for this year. I first want to extend many thanks to Corie Ralston for a wonderful job as chair last year and appreciation to all of the continuing and new UEC members for volunteering their time.
Having now served on the UEC for two years, I can assure everyone that the UEC takes its charge to represent the user community’s interests very seriously. However, we can only do that if we know what the community’s interests are. Therefore for this coming year, I am particularly interested in ways that communication between the UEC and the user community as a whole can be improved.
The first UEC meeting of the year will be on Thursday, February 20. If anyone would like to contribute comments or concerns to be addressed at the meeting, please send them to me or to any other member of the UEC. Additionally, if anyone would like to come and address the committee at our meeting, please let me know.
With plans for a potential ALS upgrade project under discussion, I think this is a particularly interesting and important time for the community’s future vision to be seen. Similarly, as ALS management grapples with current fiscal realities, it is important that the community’s priorities be known.
All users are welcome tocontact their UEC representativesto raise issues of concern relating to their own research, or to alert us to issues facing our whole community.
For the user runs from November 21 to December 22, 2013, the beam reliability [(time scheduled – time lost)/time scheduled)] was 95.7%. For this period, the mean time between failures (MTBF) was 27.4 hours, and the mean time to recovery (MTTR) was 73 minutes. There were no significant interruptions.
More detailed information on reliability is available on the ALS reliability bulletin board, which is located in the hallway between the ALS and the control room in Building 80. Questions about beam reliability should be directed to Dave Richardson (DBRichardson@lbl.gov, x4376).
ALS Director Roger Falcone took some time recently to reflect on the scientific and engineering accomplishments at the ALS while facing up to some of the challenges of the coming year. 
Ultrafast x-ray studies reveal how superionic nanocrystals transform into the conducting phase, with the transformation time set by the speed limit for ions hopping through the lattice. Such materials could be used as solid-state electrolytes for novel batteries or in resistive switching devices. 
ALS researchers have developed a new technique based on soft x-ray spectroscopy that could help scientists better understand and improve the materials required for high-performance lithium-ion batteries. The technique measures something never seen before: the migration of ions and electrons in an integrated, operating battery electrode. 
The newest member of the Berkeley Center for Structural Biology team, Marc Allaire came to the ALS from Brookhaven National Laboratory, where he was responsible for running micro-crystallography beamlines and the 
Genentech has developed a unique one-armed antibody, onartuzumab, which is now in late-stage clinical trials in multiple cancer types. Genentech used crystal structures obtained at ALS Beamline 5.0.2 to demonstrate the mechanism of action of this unique potentially therapeutic antibody. 
This has been a busy time for awards: Howard Padmore received the prestigious AVS Albert Nerkin Award, Bob Schoenlein and Fernando Sannibale were elected APS fellows, ALS user Steve Cramer became an AAAS fellow, and Shuyun Zhou (left), a previous ALS postdoctoral fellow, received the “Outstanding Young Scholar Award” from Qiu Shi Science and Technology Foundation in Fall 2013.
Happy New Year! I am privileged to be taking over as chair of the UEC for this year. I first want to extend many thanks to Corie Ralston for a wonderful job as chair last year and appreciation to all of the continuing and new UEC members for volunteering their time.
ALS in the News
