A Note from Steve Dierker

September 12, 2012

The website lightsources.org lists about 70 light source facilities worldwide – in America, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Oceania. As we all know, light sources have become essential tools in many disciplines of science, hence their rapid growth around the globe.

Here at Brookhaven, Basic Energy Sciences within the DOE Office of Science supports National Synchrotron Light Source operations as well as NSLS-II construction.

Wrote Stony Brook University Professor Robert Crease in an essay on NSLS history, “The National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) was the first facility designed and built specifically for producing and exploiting synchrotron radiation. It was also the first facility to incorporate the Chasman-Green lattice for maximizing brightness. The NSLS was officially proposed in 1976 and its groundbreaking took place in 1978. Its construction was a key episode in Brookhaven’s history, in the transition of synchrotron radiation from a novelty to a commodity, and in the transition of synchrotron-radiation scientists from parasitic to autonomous researchers.”

Now we are making a transition of a different sort, from one light source to a second. NSLS celebrated three decades of operations this year. At the same time, we are working hard to realize NSLS-II commissioning in 2014 and early operations in 2015.

Group photo of invited speakers (darker suits) and staff at the 6th Asia-Oceania Forum on Synchrotron Radiation Research, held recently in Thailand. Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, seated in the center, welcomed conference participants on the first day. Bruce Ravel, NIST, is in the group on the right, back row, third from the left.

NSLS user Bruce Ravel, of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, recently returned from the 6th Asia-Oceania Forum on Synchrotron Radiation Research. The conference was held in Bangkok, Thailand, and also served as the fourth annual users meeting for the Synchrotron Light Research Institute, which operates Thailand’s first light source.

Bruce gave an invited talk in a session on beamline and instrumentation advances. He described the spectrometer system that he and Klaus Attenkofer are planning for the ISS beamline at NSLS-II.

I am pleased to see the user community engaged in developing early science at NSLS-II.

2012-3346  |  INT/EXT  |  Newsroom