Events and E-News

Newsletter

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CLS-News                   Vol. 3            No. 8               November 30, 2005

www.lightsource.ca            University of Saskatchewan, Canada

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  1. Election for new Users' Advisory Committee members- Be sure to vote!
  2. Science Update: Experts Day, SAC and more “firsts”
  3. E-science Workshop Summary
  4. Recent Accelerator Activity (Run 20)
  5. Renewal of CLSI’s Particle Accelerator Operating Licence
  6. New staff & now hiring

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1. Election for new Users' Advisory Committee members- Be sure to vote!
Contact: clsuo@lightsource.ca

A request for you to participate in the Users' Advisory Committee (UAC) online election will be distributed on December 8th. If you do not receive a request to vote by email, please be sure to contact clsuo@lightsource.ca indicating that you intend to use the CLS in your research and therefore would like to have the opportunity to vote on UAC representation.

The UAC provides advice to the Director on the operation and management of the synchrotron and beamlines; represents the interests of CLS users; provides feedback to CLS management on various aspects of the development and operation of CLS; assists CLS in providing feedback to users about CLS-related issues and plans, and hosts the CLS User's Meetings with assistance from CLS.
Do not miss your opportunity to be involved in the decision making process.

A full report on November 19th Users’ Meeting will be available on the UAC web page in the near future: http://www.lightsource.ca/uac/

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2. Science Update: Experts Day, SAC and more “firsts”
Contact: jeff.cutler@lightsource.ca / tom.ellis@lightsource.ca

Our science program is moving forward at a brisk pace as we continue to commission beamlines and welcome our users. This is an exciting time of firsts, such as the first monochromatic light from the protein crystallography beamline, obtained November 15th.

In the experimental hall, a number of users have been exploiting the brilliant light from our spherical grating and plane grating monochromators. Of particular interest, TK Sham of the University of Western Ontario conducted the first set of timing experiments using X-ray Emission Optical Luminescence (XEOL) spectroscopy with the storage ring operating with a single bunch of electrons. This was another exciting first for our experimental facility.

We are also well into our strategic planning process. As part of this process, we have been conducting a series of consultations on the developing research plan, starting with Experts Day on November 16. We are asking the scientific community to think big and tell us where they think the CLS could be an international leader, tapping, for instance, into the existing infrastructure that surrounds us on the University campus.

Following the Experts Day, our Science Advisory Committee, which is composed of a number of international synchrotron experts, met to discuss the current status of the CLS and to look into our future. Three groups with widely varying research interests presented their ideas for future beamline sectors that will be part of the current round of CFI proposals. The first sector is for Spin and Angle Resolved Photoemission capabilities which will benefit the Canadian condensed matter physics community and is being lead by Andrea Damascelli from the University of British Columbia. The second sector, the Brockhouse X-ray Diffraction and Scattering Sector, is lead by Stefan Kycia from the University of Guelph. The third sector is BioXAS: Life Science Beamline for X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy, lead by Graham George from the University of Saskatchewan. These proposals were warmly received and deemed required elements for the future of the CLS.

To top off the excitement for the month, we had a marvellous 9th Annual Users’ Meeting and associated workshops. Congratulations to Michele Loewen and her team from our Users’ Advisory Committee and the CLS Users Office for organizing an outstanding event.

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3. eScience Workshop Summary
Contact: elder.matias@lightsource.ca

The recently held eScience workshop at the CLS brought together researchers and engineers from of a number of Canadian and international big science projects. There is a growing recognition that networking, data acquisition, analysis, processing, remote access-control and distribution, collectively known as cyber-infrastructure, is an essential part of big science and is also becoming a significant portion of the overall cost of these projects. CANARIE has funded a number of cyber-infrastructure projects under its intelligent infrastructure program to enable researchers to remotely access and control big science instruments and to allow for remote acquisition and processing of data from these facilities. Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), web services, lightpaths and workflow tools were the featured technology in these projects.

CANARIE, in partnership with NRC, also funds and operates common services such as Grid Canada www.gridcanada.ca which provides scientists with an "electronic passport" to authenticate themselves for access to remote instruments and databases within Canada and elsewhere in the world. CANARIE is also in discussion with several other big science groups such as the astronomy community, global visualization, digital libraries and others to see how common reusable SOA service may be used in these scientific fields.

Highlights included:

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4. Recent Accelerator Activity (Run 20)
Contact: les.dallin@lightsource.ca

1.5 GeV Operation: On November 7, 2005, the storage ring was successfully operated for the first time with electrons at 1.5 GeV. At this operating energy the PGM undulator produces visible light – a so-called “green beam”. In this mode the undulator radiation is readily distinguishable from background dipole radiation. This is useful for commissioning the PGM beamline. At 1.5 GeV electrons produce brighter light, albeit at lower photon energies and with shorter beam lifetimes. This mode is available for all beamlines if desired.

Single Bunch Operation and New Vertical Tune: Single bunch operation was investigated with the optical synchrotron radiation (OSR) diagnostic beamline. At high single bunch currents transverse coupling effects become apparent. Studies revealed that the coupling is reduced and the vertical emittance improved at slightly higher vertical tunes. Consequently, in the future the storage ring will be operated at a vertical tune of 4.28 (up from 4.26). At the new tune, a record single bunch current of 19 mA was achieved, limited by outgassing into the storage ring vacuum. Higher currents may be possible once storage ring single-bunch vacuum conditioning has improved.

On November 22, the single bunch mode (at 10 mA) was used to do the first time-resolved experiment at the CLS. In the future it will be possible to operate a variety of fill patterns to facilitate single bunch operations.

Top-up Operation: Preliminary investigations of top-up operations are scheduled for November 28. In this mode of operation it should be possible to keep the electron current in the storage ring constant to within a fraction of one per cent. This mode of operation is not technically challenging but care must be taken to insure a safe working environment as top-up injection is done with the photon beamline safety shutters open. This has the advantage of keeping a constant heat load on beamline components, thus minimizing possible optical changes due to thermal effects.

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5. Renewal of CLSI’s Particle Accelerator Operating Licence
Contact: mohamed.benmerrouche@lightsource.ca

The Canadian Light Source Inc. Particle Accelerator Operating Licence issued by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) will expire on May 27, 2006. In order to continue operations and all activities relating to Phase II beamline projects beyond that date, CLSI requires renewal of its operating licence.

The President of the CNSC has agreed to hear CLSI application for license renewal on a one day hearing in March 2006. The Notice of Public Hearing will be published before the end of the year.

CLSI has operated the facility in an exemplary manner since its inception and in full compliance with the CNSC Act and Regulations, its Particle Accelerator Operating Licence and conditions, and other applicable health safety and environmental laws - See the CLSI Annual Compliance reports for more details (here)

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6. New staff and now hiring
Contact: nancy.fetch@lightsource.ca

CLS would like to welcome the following new employees to the CLS:

Dr. Ru Igarashi started November 1st as a Software Development Specialist in the Experimental Facilities Group. Ru came to the CLS from the Department of Physics and Engineering Physics at the University of Saskatchewan where he was a Research Scientist. Ru is no stranger to the CLS as he once worked as a subatomic physics researcher at the Saskatchewan Accelerator Lab, the predecessor of the CLS.

David Beauregard joined the CLS at the beginning of November as a member of the Controls and Instrumentation Group. David is a recent graduate of the Electrical Engineering program at the University of Saskatchewan. David is also a familiar face to many as he worked for two summers at the CLS while attending university.

Provence Consulting, an executive recruitment firm, has been hired to lead the search for the Director of Business Development at the CLS. Please visit the following sites for more information: http://www.lightsource.ca/careers and http://www.provenceconsulting.com

CLS currently has a number of vacancies in the Experimental Facilities Division. Please visit http://www.lightsource.ca/careers

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CLS E-News is an electronic newsletter designed to keep users informed about developments at the Canadian Light Source, the national synchrotron user facility located at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK. Current and past issues of CLS E-News are available on the CLS web site: http://www.lightsource.ca/enews/archives.php

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Last modified: 2012-01-19 17:01:07