More Beamlines, More Users, More Science

NSLS-II Director John Hill shares news on the upcoming summer cycle and updates on new beamlines

John Hill enlarge

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

Dear Everyone,

Spring is in full bloom at NSLS-II and with it comes the end of our spring shutdown and the start of a busy summer cycle. With the continued growth of our user program and the recent shutdown of the Advanced Photon Source (APS), we have seen a 15% increase in the number of beam time proposals. In addition, almost 80% of our users are coming onsite for their experiments, which we are very happy about – it is this in-person collaboration that is so important in the science we do together.

We are also eagerly anticipating the arrival of more than 40 undergraduate and high school interns at NSLS-II that will be part of over 200 interns that will be onsite at Brookhaven Lab over the summer. Also returning onsite this year after a three-year pandemic hiatus is our wildly popular Summer Sunday on July 23, which typically attracts over 1000 visitors from the local community and beyond. Finally, I’d like to mention the start of our monthly Public Tours of NSLS-II, which are held the first Wednesday of each month and are open to anyone at least 16 years old. It is going to be a busy and fun summer! Please visit the NSLS-II website for more details on these events.

In this newsletter, I will highlight some accomplishments from the recent maintenance period, give an update on our ongoing and planned beamline projects, and provide some highlights from the recent Users’ Meeting.

For everyone coming to NSLS-II this summer cycle, a reminder to please take a moment to familiarize yourself with your work environment and rules when you are back on site, including our dress code of long pants/skirts and closed-toe shoes (no shorts or sandals). The safety of everyone at NSLS-II is my highest priority. Thank you.

May – August (2023-2) operations cycle

The beam returned for user experiments on May 4, after a one-month spring maintenance period. A great deal of work was accomplished during the shutdown that included: increasing the reliability of our radio frequency (RF) system, addressing ring chamber heating issues at high current, computer and power supply maintenance, and work on the personnel protective systems (PPS). We came out of the shutdown on time and with an improved accelerator complex.

As mentioned above, we have a busy summer beam time cycle scheduled, with full onsite operations for all user experiments, while maintaining our enhanced remote access capabilities. Please remember that all users (including remote users) must have active appointments to participate in experiments. Note, we require that all new or inactive users register at least 45 days prior to their beam time. So, if you have experiments this summer and have not registered, please do so now! I encourage you to see the NSLS-II User Guide for more details on user appointments.

For those of you coming on site, please be sure to check in at the Guest, User, and Visitor (GUV) Center in Bldg 400 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 (except holidays) 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.

Export Control

For some of you submitting proposals over this past year, you’ve become much more familiar with the phrase “export control.” Export control (EC) is a set of federal laws and DOE regulations designed to prevent sensitive information and technology from leaving the country. When we are doing work at NSLS-II, we need to understand if it is covered by these laws. That means determining if it is in the public domain, if it is fundamental research, or if it is export controlled. Most of our work falls into one of the first two categories and, therefore, is not covered by the EC laws. However, the fundamental research question can be a bit tricky. There are different laws here and some apply to BNL, and some do not. In general, if the researcher, funding agency, institution, or company puts some restrictions on the release of the data or technology, then it becomes export controlled and we must take additional precautions. To address these cases, NSLS-II is currently implementing research screening questions in the proposal system that are aimed export control. If you are asked to complete the research screening questions, please reply promptly so there is no delay in your experiments. And if you have questions about any of your current projects or collaborations, please contact Teresa Daniels.

HEX Beamline Progress

The High Energy Engineering X-ray Scattering (HEX) beamline took “first light” in November of 2022 and is currently commissioning its optics and endstation capabilities. X-rays have been aligned through the monochromator and now the team is working to ramp up the current in the beamline. Over the entire construction project, over 100,000 hours of labor were used from 104 different staff; this illustrates that project was a very considerable effort by many people. We are grateful to everyone who helped us get to the finish line of what is a challenging project, undertaken at a challenging time!

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 high-energy x-ray diffraction and imaging tools using monochromatic or white beam to enable the study of real atomic structures under working conditions and in real time. HEX construction was supported by New York State, through New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).

HEX is expected to take Science Commissioning proposals in the fall of 2023.

NEXT-II Project Construction Update

The NEXT-II Project consists of 3 new beamlines that are currently under construction. In February, Paul Zschack handed off his role as the project director to Yong Chu, who will lead the project through its onsite construction and installation.

The Coherent Diffraction Imaging (CDI) beamline will be optimized to deliver high-brightness x-ray beams for use in coherent imaging and scattering applications and will be located at beamline 9-ID. Over the winter, construction of the concrete satellite endstation building made a lot of progress, which is a noticeable presence outside of Building 744. Good progress is being made on the photon delivery system, endstations, beamline utilities, and in-vacuum undulator source. CDI is expected to take first light in 2025.

The NanoARPES and NanoRIXS (ARI) beamline will combine two complementary techniques: angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), which provides the quasi-particle response mediated band structure, and resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS), which provides information on the collective excitations with a 100 nm spot size designed for scanning imaging. The Soft X-ray Nanoprobe (SXN) beamline will provide state-of-the-art soft x-ray nano-imaging and spectroscopy tools with world-leading coherent photon flux in an energy range from 250 eV – 2500 eV. The SXN and ARI beamlines will be located at beamlines 29-ID-1 and 29-ID-2, respectively.

For ARI and SXN, construction continues to move forward with progress on the endstation cabins on the experimental floor. ARI and SXN have been making great progress with procurements of controls components, photoelectron spectroscopy detector, elliptically polarizing undulator sources and the endstation system for ARI, with the procurements for the photon delivery system and SXN endstations coming later this year. They are expected to take first light in 2027.

NEXT-III Project Update: Selection of future beamlines

As I mentioned in the last newsletter, we received the green light from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science to start the process of selecting the next set of beamlines for NSLS-II. This project is called NEXT-III and involves construction of 8-12 beamlines and supporting infrastructure over the next 10-12 years. This project is planned to be executed in phases, with 2-3 beamlines being launched every 1-2 years. These beamlines will cover a wide range of techniques and research fields.

In April, we held a one-day virtual workshop to discuss the possible first set of 2-3 beamlines based on a series of white papers submitted by staff and users. The next step will be review of the beamline proposals by our Science Advisory Committee (SAC). I encourage you to review the list of beamline proposals being considered and if you have a new beamline idea not on this list, please fill out this template and send it to Wah-Keat Lee, the NEXT-III project director.

2023 Joint NSLS-II, CFN, and LBMS Users’ Meeting

Thank you to everyone who attended our annual Users’ Meeting, which was held virtually from April 24-28. The Laboratory for BioMolecular Structure (LBMS), BNL’s cryo-electron microscopy facility, joined NSLS-II and CFN this year, making for an even more science-packed meeting. We had over 800 registrants and held 16 workshops, a plenary session, an awards session, and a poster session. I would like to thank the Users Executive Committees and organizers for all their hard work in putting this fantastic meeting together. I would also like to congratulate our award winners on their accomplishments. You can read more about the Users’ Meeting in a separate article in this newsletter.

In closing, thank you for reading our newsletter and for your continued pursuit of exciting science at NSLS-II. Looking forward to seeing you at NSLS-II!

— John Hill, NSLS-II Director