Welcome Back to NSLS-II

May 18, 2022

Dear Everyone, 

I am delighted to welcome everyone to the 2022 summer cycle. Currently, we have removed the restrictions on the number of onsite users. It has been a tough two years, and I’d like to thank everyone—our staff and users—for their patience and dedication during this time. We are excited to have a full on-site user program again and are looking forward to conducting successful experiments together with you.  However, we do understand that this pandemic is far from over, so please check with the user office as to the requirements for being onsite before your trip and when you are here, please take a moment to familiarize yourself with your work environment and the requirements for working there, and if you have questions, ask! The safety of everyone at NSLS-II is my top priority, so please follow all the guidelines. Thank you. 

May – August (2022-2) operations cycle

When the beam returns this month after a productive spring shutdown, we will return to full on-site operations for all user experiments. Of course, even though we have dropped restrictions on the number of on-site users, the tools for enhanced remote access remain in-place, and we encourage users to take advantage of them, where it makes sense to do so. These tools might for example, allow you to have more collaborators involved directly in the experiment than would otherwise be possible such as a brand-new graduate student, or a theory colleague perhaps. However, please remember that even remote users must have active appointments to participate in experiments. Please see the NSLS-II User Guide for more details on user appointments.  

I would also like to remind all users coming on-site to check in at the Guest, User, and Visitor (GUV) Center prior to coming to NSLS-II. They will confirm your appointment status and training, and then encode your access card for accessing the experimental floor. The GUV center is open Monday through Friday (unless a holiday) between 7:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. If you must arrive outside of these hours, please email the Users’ Office at least one week in advance of your arrival to make arrangements. 

Also, please remember that, even during the summer season, you must wear long pants/skirts and flat, closed-toe shoes when on the NSLS-II experimental floor. 

This summer cycle will run until early August, followed by a summer shutdown through mid-September 2022. You can find the details here: NSLS-II operations schedule.

Kickoff: CFN instrumentation on NSLS-II General User Proposals 

In our last newsletter, I announced that NSLS-II users can now request instrumentation at Brookhaven Lab’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) as part of their NSLS-II General User proposals. This summer cycle is the official kickoff, which includes 11 CFN instruments that users will be able to select from. Please watch your email for the list of available instruments.  

Under this new multifacility, multimodal arrangement, NSLS-II users can request up to three beamlines and two CFN instruments on a single General User proposal. At least one beamline must be requested. If a proposal is allocated beam time, it will also receive time on the CFN instrument, subject to feasibility review and sufficient availability. If there are CFN instruments that you’d like to see added to the list, please let us know by emailing the NSLS-II User Office! 

Join us for our virtual 2022 Users’ Meeting  

Please register and join us for our annual NSLS-II/CFN Users’ Meeting from May 23–26, 2022. This year’s meeting will include a packed day of plenary talks and 15 diverse workshops spread over four days. More details on the various workshops are available on the meeting agenda. 

7 nm volumetric resolution demonstrated at HXN 

I am proud to announce that the HXN team, in collaboration with researchers from the CFN, have reached a new record resolution for tomography at the Hard X-ray Nanoprobe (HXN) beamline. This new resolution is now available to all HXN users. To read more about this achievement, see our news story on the recently published Science paper.  

Thank you for taking the time to read our newsletter and your continued pursuit of exciting science at NSLS-II. 

John Hill, NSLS-II Director