Skip to main content

ALS

Home / News / Features

Features

Tom Scarvie Receives 2020 Renner User Services Award

At this year’s ALS User Meeting, Tom Scarvie, head of the ALS Operations Group, was honored with the 2020 Renner Award. The ALS Users’ Executive Committee selected Scarvie “for coordinating all accelerator and beamline floor operator activities to provide reliable light to users safely.” Read more »

2020 ALS User Meeting Highlights

An experiment born of necessity, the 2020 ALS User Meeting was held August 25–28, “in silico.” The results have been generally positive, revealing emergent benefits to interactions occurring in the virtual realm, even as we hope for a return to real space ASAP. Read more »

2020 Shirley Award to Honor Miquel Salmeron

By taking surface studies from ultrahigh vacuum to near-ambient pressure, Miquel Salmeron’s work at the ALS has had deep impact on a broad range of scientific questions, revealing the chemical, electronic, and mechanical properties of surfaces and interfaces on the nanometer (and often atomic) scale. Read more »

Masks On, Ready to Work: Meet the People Supporting COVID-19 Science

David Richardson’s job is literally to make sure the light stays on. But it’s not just any light—it’s a very special x-ray light that could play a crucial role in an eventual treatment for COVID-19. Richardson is an operator at the ALS, and is one of a handful of workers providing essential services to scientists working on COVID-19-related research. Read more »

How the ALS Team Shelters in Place

While we have been under a shelter-in-place order in the Bay Area, the ALS community has mostly been telecommuting. We caught up with Angelic Lucero, Karen Nunez, Ina Reichel, Bruce Rude, Ashley White, and Antoine Wojdyla to see how they have been handling this unprecedented experience. Read more »

A Graphene Innovation That Is Music to Your Ears

A California-based company called GraphAudio is moving toward commercializing graphene-based audio technology developed by researchers at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley. The technology could transform a variety of devices, including speakers, earbuds and headphones, microphones, autonomous vehicle sensors, and ultrasonic and echolocation systems. Read more »

July 2020 Shutdown Preview

The ALS will be undergoing longer shutdowns in preparation for the ALS-U dark period. Although beam will not be available for users, the flurry of activity at the ALS will continue, and many projects are scheduled for the upcoming shutdowns. ALS Deputy for Accelerator Operations Fernando Sannibale gives us a preview of this summer’s shutdown. Read more »

Winter 2020 Shutdown Recap

Many projects around the ALS were completed during the Winter 2020 shutdown. Some of these improvements will benefit users now, and others provide additional utility that will be required in the future. In response to user feedback, we have endeavored to divide projects into the smallest possible segments in order to decrease the amount of time required for each shutdown. Read more »

ALS Mission and Values Event

Earlier this month, the ALS Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accountability (IDEA) Committee hosted an interactive staff event to gather input on the ALS Mission Statement and a new set of core values. Once approved by the ALS community and management, these elements will help guide strategic decisions for the ALS and set work environment expectations. Read more »