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Local Disorder Impacts a Quantum Material’s Electronic States

Machine learning tools and experiments at the ALS enabled the identification of defect-rich regions in single-crystalline Co3Sn2S2 that link to how surface electrons move. Atom-level understanding of how the surface electronic properties of a magnetic semimetal can be tuned could guide its use in advanced technologies like spintronics and catalysis. Read more »PPT-icon-35

2026 Winter Shutdown Recap

The 2026 winter shutdown started on January 2, and the ALS returned to user operations on Tuesday, February 3. It was the shortest shutdown the ALS has had since 2018; as a result, the current user run will be the longest one since 2018. One big accomplishment of the recent shutdown was the installation of the “golden bellows” connecting the accumulator ring vacuum with the rest of the ALS vacuum system. Read more »

February 2026 Message from the UEC Chair

Welcome from the 2026 ALS Users’ Executive Committee (UEC)! As the group dedicated to representing the voice of the ALS user community, our primary role is to bridge the gap between your scientific needs and the operational realities of ALS management. Read more for the outlook on the year and be sure to suggest user meeting speakers and workshops. Read more »

How Zinc Alters Mineral Structure in Early Arthritis

Using high-resolution x-ray techniques, researchers from UCSF, the ALS, and SSRL uncovered structural evidence that zinc subtly alters bone mineral in vulnerable joint regions, revealing early changes that may explain how arthritis begins and progresses. Read more »

Shan Wu, 2026 Users’ Executive Committee Chair

Shan Wu first came to the ALS as a postdoc at UC Berkeley/Berkeley Lab. Working on quantum phenomena as an assistant professor at Santa Clara University, she uses the ALS as well as other user facilities. She treasures the connections at the ALS which inspired her to join the UEC. Read more »

Berkeley Lab Hosts Agentic AI for User Facilities Workshop

Berkeley Lab hosted a workshop on Agentic AI for User Facilities with about 100 registered participants from user facilities across the US national lab complex and European light sources. The two main goals of the workshop were to identify cross-facility patterns, gaps, and design principles for agentic AI at DOE user facilities, and ground agentic AI in domain realities and identify domain-specific constraints, opportunities, and readiness. Read more »

200 Scouts Visit the ALS

Berkeley Lab’s Nuclear Science Division hosted another Nuclear Science Day for Scouts. The day’s activities included ALS tours for the scouts. This year a record number of about 200 scouts attended. Read more »

Ian Lacey, Principal Scientific Engineering Associate

The storage ring of the ALS generates incredibly bright beams of x-rays. But they are only useful to users, if we can steer and focus them onto the sample. Ian Lacey, working in the metrology lab of the ALS, helps measure and tune the optical elements needed for that steering. Read more »

2025 Summer Shutdown Recap

The ALS returned to user operation in October after a lengthy shutdown. During the shutdown, a major milestone for ALS-U was accomplished: The mechanical installations of the accumulator ring and the booster-to-accumulator-ring transfer line were completed. Read more »