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Machine-Learning Team Receives 2021 Halbach Award

This year’s Halbach Award for Innovative Instrumentation at the ALS went to a team of accelerator physicists and computer scientists who were able to use machine-learning techniques to solve a problem that has plagued third-generation light sources for a long time: fluctuations in beam size due to the motion of insertion devices. Read more »

2021 Renner Award winner Andrea “Andi” Jones

At this year’s ALS User Meeting, Andrea “Andi” Jones, proposal coordinator in the User Services Office, was honored with the 2021 Tim Renner User Services Award. The ALS Users’ Executive Committee selected Jones for “her dedication and commitment in supporting the User Office that have allowed efficient proposal reviews and beamtime allocations during the pandemic.” Read more »

David Prendergast Wins 2021 Shirley Award

David Prendergast, an internationally recognized computational scientist whose first-principles calculations of x-ray spectra have helped with the interpretation of countless experiments done at the ALS, has been awarded the 2021 Shirley Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement by the ALS Users’ Executive Committee. Read more »

Chemical (and Strategic) Transformations at Beamline 9.0

The Chemical Dynamics beamline, used for gas-phase vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) experiments, was one of the first beamlines built at the ALS. Since then, the program has undergone several strategic transformations, enabling the study of complexity in clusters, aerosols, and nanoparticles using both VUV and soft x-ray radiation. Read more »

EPSCoR Collaboration Fosters New Research and New Careers

The DOE Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (DOE EPSCoR) encourages partnerships between national labs and researchers in qualifying states and territories. An EPSCoR collaboration with researchers from Kentucky has resulted in an ALS highlight, career advancement for young scientists, and a larger, center-scale proposal. Read more »

Winter 2021 Shutdown Recap

During the Winter 2021 shutdown, the ALS was a hive of activity, though social distancing requirements during the pandemic meant that the activity looked a bit different from years past. We began commissioning on March 26 and plan to return to user operations after commissioning concludes. Read more »

Jennifer Doudna and the Nobel Prize: The Advanced Light Source Perspective

The 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier for the development of a world-changing gene-editing technology. At the ALS, Doudna’s work on CRISPR-Cas9 was enabled by many visionary people with innovative ideas, implemented in support of a world-class structural biology program. Read more »PPT-icon-35

Summer 2020 Shutdown Recap

With all the changes due to COVID-19, it is no surprise that this summer’s ALS shutdown was also affected. It began later (August instead of July) and was shorter than originally scheduled (about six weeks instead of three months). Nevertheless a number of smaller activities, many in preparation for the ALS Upgrade (ALS-U), were accomplished. Read more »

Eric Gullikson Receives 2020 Klaus Halbach Award

When Eric Gullikson first arrived at Berkeley Lab, the Advanced Light Source (ALS) did not yet exist. Thanks to his work, not only has the ALS grown in scale, capability, and renown, but other light sources worldwide have benefited as well. The ALS Users’ Executive Committee recognized Gullikson, staff scientist, for “contributions to x-ray metrology that are central to building beamlines at the ALS and around the world.” Read more »