The Fall Cycle is Here

Photo of John Hill enlarge

NSLS-II director John Hill stands on the balcony above the experimental floor.

Dear Everyone,

Welcome back to NSLS-II for this year’s fall cycle. We no longer have restrictions on the number of onsite users, and we’re very happy to see so many of you returning to carry out your experiments in person! This fall, we will have a small “welcome back” gift for all users that come onsite; I’ll leave it a surprise, but we know you’ll enjoy it!

The last two and a half years have been tough, and I’d like to thank everyone—our staff and users—for their patience and dedication during this time. I note though that the pandemic is not over, so please check with the user office in regard to the requirements for coming onsite before your trip. Please also take a moment to familiarize yourself with your work environment when you are back on site, especially if you have not been here in a while. The safety of everyone at NSLS-II is my top priority, so please follow all the guidelines. Thank you.

September – December (2022-3) operations cycle

The beam returned for user experiments on September 12, 2022, after a short summer shutdown. As I mentioned, we will support a full onsite operations for all user experiments, while maintaining our enhanced remote access capabilities. We encourage users to take advantage of these, where it makes sense to do so. These tools might allow you to have more collaborators involved directly in the experiment than would otherwise have been possible—for example a brand-new graduate student or a theory colleague. 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.

For those of you coming on site, please 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 entering the experimental floor. The GUV center is open Monday through Friday (unless a holiday) between 7:30 AM and 4:30 PM. 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.

New beamlines

I am excited to report that we will have first light of a new beamline this fall. The construction phase of the High Energy Engineering X-ray Scattering (HEX) beamline is coming to a close this late summer and the beamline team will soon start the commissioning of this new instrument. HEX will be a powerful and versatile tool to advance energy storage and conversion research, such as battery development and materials engineering. It will combine large scale x-ray diffraction and imaging tools with a monochromatic or white beam, enabling the study of atomic structures under working conditions and in real time. The beamline’s construction was funded in part by New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. 

Additionally, the INF project is just beginning to get off the ground. This will be a set of up to three new infrared beamlines, primarily for Infrared Near Field nanospectroscopy. INF will be a new addition to our existing set of infrared tools for the study of quantum excitations in novel materials and structures.  The endstations will specialize in the photon energy range from about 10 meV to 0.5 eV, utilizing atomic force microscopy (AFM) technology to probe low energy phenomena on a ~10 nm scale. The technique can couple to novel modes while simultaneously providing topographic and other AFM sensitive information. We expect beamline construction to begin in early 2023.

Meet our new User Program Coordinator, Mercy Baez

I would like to congratulate Mercy Baez on becoming the new User Program Coordinator for NSLS-II and LBMS. Mercy has been with NSLS and NSLS-II since 2005, and we are all delighted she has agreed to take on this new role. Please read more about Mercy in this announcement

Join me at United Nations Science Summit on September 19

On September 19, 2022, I will have the pleasure of speaking at the United Nations (UN) Science Summit on how synchrotron light sources such as NSLS-II can support the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. My talk will be part of an entire day that highlights what National Labs, such as Brookhaven can do to advance these goals. The day will also include an interactive, virtual tour of NSLS-II. This is a wonderful opportunity for us to highlight how our work can have lasting impact on solving the world’s most challenging issues.  It is always a pleasure to showcase the amazing science being done here in collaboration with you all! The Summit is a public event so feel free to register and listen to the talks.

Missed the last NSLS-II UEC Show?

If you missed the last episode of out NSLS-II UEC Show featuring Dava Keavney, the new U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science Program Manager for light sources, you can re-watch it on the Brookhaven Lab's WBNL. 

Thank you for reading our newsletter and your continued pursuit of exciting science at NSLS-II.

John Hill, NSLS-II Director