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May 23-25, 2005 A Passion for Synchrotron Science and its Future: News from the 2005 NSLS Annual Users' MeetingThe speakers at the main session of the 2005 National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) Annual Users' Meeting, held on Tuesday, May 24, at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), spoke on many different topics. But they all conveyed fierce enthusiasm for the science performed at the NSLS and expressed hope that its proposed successor, the world-leading NSLS-II, would become a reality. NSLS Users' Executive Committee Vice-Chair Peter Stephens welcomed the audience to the main meeting, setting a positive and enthusiastic tone for the day's events. He then opened the stage to BNL Director Praveen Chaudhari.
Chaudhari commended many attendees for their work to advance NSLS-II. "You've helped tell us what is needed in this new light source, including the workshop last fall that defined NSLS-II," he said. "The struggle to get NSLS-II is just beginning - we need to design it and then get funding. But once the machine is built, you'll have the best machine in the world, and we need your help to make that happen." Chaudhari then introduced Patricia Dehmer, head of the Office of Basic Energy Sciences within the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science, who plays an important role in efforts to move NSLS-II forward. Dehmer elaborated further on the status of the proposed new facility and made several key points, many concerning the tough budget years ahead. The Office of Science, she said, led by Raymond Orbach, has set a philosophy in place for fiscal year 2006: making the U.S. the leader in every major field of research, regardless of the declining budgets to come. "These are very scary times, and being bold and aggressive is probably the only way to face this," she said.
However, her talk was full of encouraging messages. NSLS-II, she said, falls into one of the "mission challenges" of the Office of Basic Energy Sciences - that is, enabling the construction of major scientific facilities. "NSLS-II will undoubtedly be the world's finest synchrotron; it will be a stunning facility," she said. Soon, she added, she and Orbach will present the Laboratory's NSLS-II proposal to Deputy Secretary of Energy Clay Sell for his approval. She spoke emphatically to NSLS-II supporters. "I think we have a very high probability for success with NSLS-II. But we need your help, too. You have to understand the realities of the budget and be sophisticated when you talk to folks in Washington. You can't rely on Congress to launch something like NSLS-II - you have to talk to the administration." In her closing remarks, Dehmer left off on a very positive note. "This laboratory has a wonderful history of constructing and operating major user facilities," she said. "The run of the NSLS has been nothing short of remarkable, and NSLS-II will take that tradition and move it into the future." She also praised NSLS Chairman Steve Dierker. "Steve has been a superb leader for NSLS-II, and there's no way we could have made our case to Ray Orbach without him. NSLS-II has moved up in the DOE 20-year plan largely because of Steve's efforts."
Dierker, who spoke next, showed the audience that the NSLS continues to thrive, even as third-generation synchrotrons draw more and more users. "We've held our own and then some," he said. "The number of users served by the NSLS has been stable at about 2,300 per year." He described the NSLS as "very cost effective, highly productive, and highly reliable." Since 2001, the facility has met many key goals, such as maintaining and strengthening its user program, expanding its user base, and developing a compelling proposal for NSLS-II. In addition, there has been a "dramatic" evolution of NSLS beamlines, including better support to several beamlines to make them more useful and modern, and many major beamline upgrades. Looking into the future, Dierker said he looks forward to continuing user input on NSLS-II. "The community has responded very enthusiastically and vigorously," he said. "I think we have put forward a compelling design that is critically needed in order to probe materials at high-energy resolution, and at spatial resolutions on the order of one nanometer, which would be unprecedented." "There is a host of important and exciting scientific opportunities that will be enabled by NSLS-II," he concluded. "This is something the U.S. absolutely needs to regain leadership in synchrotron radiation science." Next, in the first scientific talk of the day, Henk Schenk of the University of Amsterdam discussed "The Structure of Cocoa Butter and the Quality of Chocolate." In this interesting presentation, Schenk described his group's work using x-ray diffraction to study the structure of cocoa butter. Cocoa butter is an essential component of chocolate that determines the chocolate's characteristic properties, such as its sheen and meltability. By studying the various phases of cocoa butter via melting-cooling processes, he and his group patented a method to produce chocolate that stays fresh longer than other chocolates, and even devised a chocolate-making machine. Schenk was followed by a talk on safety delivered by Peter Stephens and Bob Casey, the NSLS Associate Chair for Environment, Safety, Health, and Quality. In a back-and-forth style, Casey and Stephens discussed safety from the point of view of NSLS users and administration, particularly in the wake of the electrical incident last year at the Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC). The issues raised during their talk were presented in further detail, and subject to more extensive discussion, at a special "Electrical Safety in the Research Community" workshop the following day.
The workshop covered several topics. NSLS Safety Officer Andrew Ackerman discussed National Fire Protection Association electrical standards implemented at the NSLS. He also elaborated on a new NSLS rule that all electrical devices in the NSLS be certified by a nationally recognized testing laboratory within five years, including equipment brought in by users. He showed several photos of unsafe and/or "homemade" electrical equipment and configurations found on the NSLS floor, which illustrated the need for such rules. Bob Chmiel, the NSLS Environmental, Safety, and Health engineer, expanded on this. He displayed actual examples of unsafe electrical configurations found during routine NSLS inspections, and encouraged users to routinely check their equipment. Finally, Casey gave a more detailed account of the SLAC incident, the many violations of procedure and practice that led to it, and lessons learned. He also went over some recent NSLS electrical incidents, and the lessons learned from them. The second scientific talk at the main meeting was delivered by John Rehr of the University of Washington. Rehr spoke about the theory involved in interpreting x-ray data obtained from many synchrotron analysis techniques, such as extended x-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) and nuclear resonant inelastic x-ray scattering.
In the afternoon, Benjamin Chu from Stony Brook University talked about the polymer experiments he performs with his group at beamline X27C, using wide-angle x-ray diffraction (WAXD) and small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS). Their end station contains several specialized instruments, such as spinning, stretching, and high-pressure devices, which allow them to investigate various properties of the polymers. Next, Steve Almo from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine discussed "Structural Genomics in the 3rd Millenium." Almo said that scientists are solving protein structures at amazing rates, but that the future of structural biology is determining the structures of protein complexes - many proteins interacting at once. He described a new technique to study proteins, called synchrotron x-ray footprinting, which may help structural biologists look beneath cell membranes to study many cell components at once.
Finally, NSLS scientist Peter Abbamonte presented his work on antiferromagnetism, a state of magnetism in certain materials in which ions orient themselves into regions of opposite alignment, called "stripes." Antiferromagnetic materials can become superconductors, and Abbamonte and his group are trying to determine if stripes play a role - do they assist or compete with superconductivity? At the end of Tuesday's main meeting, the outgoing NSLS Users' Executive Committee Chair, Larry Shapiro, announced the three newest members of the UEC: Chris Jacobsen of Stony Brook University (SBU), Steve Almo, and Chris Cahill of George Washington University. NSLS scientist Lisa Miller, the poster session organizer, announced the poster sessions winners: Brandon Chapman (BNL-NSLS), Angelo Dragone (BNL-Instrumentation), Holger Fleckenstein (SBU), Ashtosh Ganjoo (Lehigh University), Meghan Ruppel (SBU), and Tejas Telivala (SBU).
Later that day, meeting participants attended the evening banquet in Berkner Hall for good food, drinks, and conversation. During dinner, photos of the NSLS and NSLS staff cycled on a large screen at the front of the room, sparking conversations. Stephens also presented the UEC Community Service Award to Tony Lenhard. After dinner, NSLS historian Robert Crease treated everyone to a bit of history during a special presentation. In a narrative accompanied by old photos, he recounted the days before the NSLS was built, the roadblocks encountered before and during its construction, and the ultimate success of the facility. During the two days surrounding the main meeting, Monday the 23rd and Wednesday the 25th, several additional workshops were held at locations across the Laboratory. They were "Nanomagnetism: Materials and Probes," "Imaging Nanoscale Structure in Biominerals: New Results and Challenges," "The Impact of Cryogenic Specimen Automounters on the Future of Macromolecular Crystallography," "Spectroscopic Studies of Nanoscaled Systems," "Application of Small-Angle X-Ray Scattering to Biological Structures," and "In-situ Analyses in Environmental and Chemical Systems." Workshop Summaries
ARTICLE BY: Laura Mgrdichian PHOTOS BY: Roger Stoutenburgh |
The National Synchrotron Light Source at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, is a national user research
facility funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Basic Energy Science. The NSLS operates two electron
storage rings: an X-Ray ring and a Vacuum UltraViolet (VUV) ring which provide intense light spanning the electromagnetic
spectrum from the infrared through x-rays. Each year over 2300 scientists from universities, industries and government
labs perform research at the NSLS.
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