Up Close: Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory

Extract

A marriage of the new and the old is under way at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBL), Berkeley, California. The new is the Advanced Light Source (ALS), a facility for generating laser-like, partially coherent beams of x-ray and ultraviolet (collectively, the XUV) synchrotron radiation of unprecedented spectral brightness. (See Figure 1.) The old is the domed hall that has sheltered the historic 184-inch cyclotron, a nuclear accelerator built 46 years ago by the laboratory's founder E.O. Lawrence. The ALS is to reside in an enlarged version of the old hall, a familiar landmark in the Berkeley-San Francisco area whose architectural features are to be preserved.

Another sign of the marriage is an increased emphasis on materials research. Though by no means forsaking its nuclear science origins, LBL has seen its budget for materials research grow steadily in recent years, especially with the establishment of the Center for Advanced Materials and the construction of two new laboratories to house its activities. [See the April 1988 MRS BULLETIN, p. 54, for an Up Close article on LBL's National Center for Electron Microscopy.] With its focus on the use of electromagnetic radiation for structural and spectroscopic studies of physical, chemical, and biological systems, including those investigated by materials researchers, the ALS fits neatly into this new emphasis. In fact, funding for the $98.7 million ALS comes to LBL through the Division of Materials Sciences of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).