High-Pressure MOF Research Yields Structural Insights
Metal-organic frameworks have shown promise in a variety of applications ranging from gas storage to ion exchange. Accurate structural knowledge is key to the understanding of the applicability of these materials; to learn more, researchers used ALS Beamline 11.3.1 to perform in situ, high-pressure, single-crystal x-ray diffraction. Read more…
Industry @ ALS: IBM Probes Unique Material Capabilities at the ALS
Vanadium dioxide is a somewhat futuristic material that could yield faster and much more energy-efficient electronic devices. IBM researchers from the company’s forward-thinking Spintronic Science and Applications Center recently used the ALS to gain greater insight into vanadium dioxide’s unusual phase transition. Read more…
Ring Leader: Peter Nico
Peter Nico, recently appointed chair of the UEC, brings a varied user perspective to his new post: like many environmental science users, Nico has worked at a number of different ALS beamlines, from hard x-ray tomography to x-ray diffraction to STXM to infrared. It’s the combination these multiple capabilities that he sees as one of the greatest assets the ALS has to offer users.Read more…
Senator Chris Coons on National Labs, Innovation, and the ALS
In his floor speech to the Senate on January 29, US Senator Chris Coons of Delaware unveiled a bill to modernize national labs and spur innovation. Sen. Coons (right, in photo) visited the ALS last fall in the company of ALS Director Roger Falcone (left) and LBNL Director Paul Alivisatos. During the tour he learned about the Sematech-Center for X-Ray Optics collaboration, which he praised in his speech. Read the full text of his speech and/or see the video from the Senate floor.
Flying Undulators Again! New EPU Moves into Sector 7
The ALS MAESTRO project has just reached a significant milestone with the installation of a new elliptically polarizing undulator (EPU), representing the return of light to Beamline 7.0. Read about the project and see more photos.
Who’s in the News: Visitors and Awards
Charles Fadley (right, pictured with Joseph Nordgren) of the University of California, Davis, and veteran ALS user, recently received an honorary doctorate from Uppsala University in Sweden. Fadley was recognized for his research on condensed matter, materials, and surface/interface physics, as well as molecular physics. Read more…
Visitors included students from Contra Costa College seeing the ALS up close, members of the Oakland Chamber of Commerce, film makers from SPIE, and others; see Visitors for photos and more information.
February 20, 2014: Members of the ALS Users’ Executive Committee at their first meeting of 2014.
From left: Mahati Chintapalli (student member), Tanja Cuk, David Shuh, Yuri Suzuki, Andreas Scholl, Tyler Troy, Peter Nico (chair), and Scott Classen.
Not pictured: Artur Braun, Chris Cappa, Brian Collins, Adam Hitchcock, Micky Holcomb, and Corie Ralston (past chair).
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 January 8 to February 16, 2014, the beam reliability [(time scheduled – time lost)/time scheduled)] was 95.2%. For this period, the mean time between failures (MTBF) was 38.3 hours, and the mean time to recovery (MTTR) was 123 minutes. A beam outage of 9.6 hours occurred on January 12 which involved the failure of a storage ring cryo-pump temperature sensor, a QF power supply failure, and an associated issue with the top-off ETI chassis.
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).
Metal-organic frameworks have shown promise in a variety of applications ranging from gas storage to ion exchange. Accurate structural knowledge is key to the understanding of the applicability of these materials; to learn more, researchers used ALS Beamline 11.3.1 to perform in situ, high-pressure, single-crystal x-ray diffraction. 
Vanadium dioxide is a somewhat futuristic material that could yield faster and much more energy-efficient electronic devices. IBM researchers from the company’s forward-thinking Spintronic Science and Applications Center recently used the ALS to gain greater insight into vanadium dioxide’s unusual phase transition. 
Peter Nico, recently appointed chair of the UEC, brings a varied user perspective to his new post: like many environmental science users, Nico has worked at a number of different ALS beamlines, from hard x-ray tomography to x-ray diffraction to STXM to infrared. It’s the combination these multiple capabilities that he sees as one of the greatest assets the ALS has to offer users.
In his floor speech to the Senate on January 29, US Senator Chris Coons of Delaware unveiled a bill to modernize national labs and spur innovation. Sen. Coons (right, in photo) visited the ALS last fall in the company of ALS Director Roger Falcone (left) and LBNL Director Paul Alivisatos. During the tour he learned about the Sematech-Center for X-Ray Optics collaboration, which he praised in his speech. 
The ALS MAESTRO project has just reached a significant milestone with the installation of a new elliptically polarizing undulator (EPU), representing the return of light to Beamline 7.0. 
Charles Fadley (right, pictured with Joseph Nordgren) of the University of California, Davis, and veteran ALS user, recently received an honorary doctorate from Uppsala University in Sweden. Fadley was recognized for his research on condensed matter, materials, and surface/interface physics, as well as molecular physics. 
ALS in the News
