May 19-21, 2008
2008 NSLS-CFN Joint Users’ Meeting Stresses Strategic Planning
Defining the role of synchrotron science and research at the nanoscale for Brookhaven and the nation at large was a key task stressed by government and Laboratory officials at the third joint meeting of the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) and Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) user communities. About 400 visiting scientists, staff members, and scientific leaders attended the annual meeting, which ran from May 19-21.
Calling the CFN, NSLS, and the future National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) the “backbone of the Lab’s programs in photon science and nanoscience,” Laboratory Director Sam Aronson told the plenary session audience how the facilities also enable the energy strategy of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science.
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“Our vision is to be the provider of choice for world-class science and facilities in support of the DOE Office of Science’s mission to enable breakthroughs that ensure our nation’s future,” Aronson said. “These facilities play a key role in our thinking about how to attack the nation’s critical energy problems."
Aronson also stressed the importance of NSLS-II to the Laboratory’s strategic plan for the next decade.
“A shift will take place in the Laboratory’s overall balance of research, which has been dominated for most of its life by research in particle physics and nuclear physics,” Aronson said. “While nuclear and particle physics are and will continue to be mainstays of the Laboratory, I see the Lab developing more of a balance between basic energy sciences and nuclear and particle physics as it goes forward. NSLS-II is a big piece of that, as is the CFN.”
Critical Decisions for Projects and the Budget
A familiar face at the annual users’ meeting, Pat Dehmer took the stage next in her new role as Deputy Director for Science Programs in the DOE’s Office of Science. Dehmer first congratulated the CFN on achieving critical decision 4b (CD-4b), which signals the start of operations and came almost nine years after the idea for the CFN and DOE’s four other nanocenters was born.
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Pat Dehmer |
She also congratulated NSLS-II for the completion of CD-2, which sets the project’s cost and schedule baseline, and outlined the five critical decisions that DOE projects must meet. Slated to achieve CD-3 by the end of the year, NSLS-II “is about halfway through its development, even though the ground has not been broken yet,” Dehmer said.
Dehmer then displayed a chart showing Office of Science appropriations for the last 10 years, and pointed out that while the recent budget shortfall was a “random, senseless act of violence,” only in 2007 and 2008 were funds significantly less than the amount requested by the President.
“It’s important to understand that the appropriations process has not been uncertain over the long haul,” Dehmer said.
She praised the NSLS-II for keeping the project on pace with limited funds – $15 million was removed from the project’s requested budget last year.
“It’s to the credit of the NSLS-II team that this did not affect the schedule at which they were getting CD-2 and now, CD-3,” Dehmer said. “That’s a remarkable tour de force on the part of this project.”
A similar budget situation in 2009 would likely slow down NSLS-II, Dehmer said. But she said she hopes that the two-year funding blip, caused by political turnover in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, is simply an “aberration.”
“Congress does not wish to go through this again in ’09,” she said. “It was simply too bitter, too difficult, and too hurtful to everybody. We’re going to start over in ‘09 after the new administration is sworn in.”
NSLS-II Update: Construction on the Horizon
Next, Steve Dierker, Associate Laboratory Director for Light Sources, gave the audience an update on the NSLS-II project, which is scheduled to start full operations in June 2015.
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Steve Dierker |
Currently, NSLS-II staff members are working on final engineering design documents, which will be used to actually build the facility, Dierker said. Those will be reviewed in September, after which they expect to achieve CD-3. By early 2009, the project plans to award a $200 million contract for ring construction, Dierker said.
“Then, things will be very busily happening to the south of us as the construction proceeds,” he said. “It’s been about six years that this version of an NSLS upgrade has been seriously underway and it will be about six years from now when we achieve our early project completion goal and beam will be available to the beamlines.”
Recent changes to the facility’s design include increases in beam height, tunnel height, and in the experimental floor’s radial width, as well as the addition of spaces between the laboratory office buildings to allow for the extension of beamlines outside of the storage ring. The current design accommodates for nine of these extra-long beamlines, each up to several hundred meters long, Dierker said.
After detailing several research and development advances made in terms of magnets and optics for NSLS-II, Dierker talked about the need to develop a “coherent, facility-wide plan that is responsive to the needs of the various user communities.” Input from the first NSLS-II User Workshop, held in July 2007, and a series of planning workshops held with the NSLS earlier this year, will be used to meet that goal.
“One clear message was the advantages, both scientific and technical, to be gained by appropriately combining communities with similar requirements,” Dierker said. The white papers produced from the workshops also show why it’s important for careful strategic planning, Dierker said, as the total number of beamlines requested greatly exceeds the number of ports that will be available at NSLS-II.
“We need to prioritize among competing demands and weigh new ideas versus the needs required for the continuation of existing communities served well by NSLS,” he said.
CFN Update: “What a Difference a Year Makes”
Since its ribbon-cutting ceremony in May 2007, the CFN has gone from a mostly empty building to a vibrant research facility with the goal of being the “hub for nanoscience in the Northeast and beyond,” said CFN Director Emilio Mendez.
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Emilio Mendez |
“Most of our instruments are state-of-the-art, but none of them are unique,” he said about the CFN and the four other nanoscale science research centers funded by DOE’s Office of Science. “We’re unique because we combine a high density of state-of-the-art tools with top scientists in the nanoscience field.”
Mendez gave examples of research conducted by the facility, which is divided into three themes – electronic materials, interface science and catalysis, and soft and biological nanomaterials – and stressed the importance of CFN’s collaboration with the NSLS, BNL’s Chemistry Department, and other facilities across the Lab.
“We are not doing more of the same, but coming at these scientific problems from a different angle,” he said.
With the CFN now running at full operations, the user program has greatly expanded, Mendez said. As of the end of April, more than 260 proposals were received and reviewed, of which almost 230 were approved. The facility’s staff is growing as well, with 33 scientists, support staff members, and postdoctoral students, nine of which were hired in the last year. By 2010, Mendez said, the staffing level is expected to grow to 55.
In addition, the staff is working to acquire new equipment, including an e-beam lithography system (a tool that allows scientists and engineers to create nanometer-sized electronic and mechanical devices using a computer-guided beam of electrons to “write” patterns or designs) and an aberration-corrected low-energy electron microscope and photoemission electron microscope. The staff also hopes to provide new resources for users, such as web-based access for simulations, remote training, and electronic management of user proposals, Mendez said.
NSLS Update: Keeping Active in a Tough Year
Next, NSLS Chair Chi-Chang Kao thanked staff and users for helping the NSLS achieve a number of accomplishments in the past year: receiving the best Lab-wide grades in DOE’s Integrated Safety Management audit; surpassing 95 percent reliability on both of the facility’s storage rings; and producing almost 1,000 publications – a record high. About 25 percent of those papers were published in premier journals, a testament to sustainability in both the quantity and quality of NSLS research, Kao said.
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Chi-Chang Kao |
Kao also acknowledged the difficulties presented by the budget shortfall, which resulted in about a $7-million cut to the dollars requested by the NSLS in fiscal year 2008. In addition to slowing down the addition of new staff, delaying upgrade projects, and reducing the operating budget, machine operating hours had to be cut back for the first time in NSLS history, Kao said.
“Last year was a tough year,” he said. “It was challenging to the staff and to all of you who work with us. All we can do is prioritize, ask tough questions, and make difficult choices.”
Despite limited resources, the facility still remained extremely active, Kao said. For example: plans are underway to add three more beamlines to the facility next year, bringing the total number to 68; research and development work continues to yield novel, advanced detectors for the NSLS and light source facilities around the world; a newly formed Beamline Transfer Working Group is helping guide the transition from the NSLS to the NSLS-II; and NSLS staff members, along with the Office of Educational Programs, are organizing activities for the new Historically Black Colleges and Universities User Consortium meant to train professors and students in synchrotron skills.
The number of NSLS users remains steady at about 2,200, Kao said, adding that he’d like to increase the number of industrial users, which now make up about 7 percent of the total.
“There’s a need to bridge the gap between basic sciences and applied sciences,” Kao said. “The NSLS is one of the best places to do that, because very often, you find different scientists working on similar things, but they just don’t know about it. The facility’s job is to get them together, to create a new paradigm of universities, industries, and the Lab working together.”
Renewable/Sustainable Energy Science Talks
After brief updates from the NSLS and CFN Users’ Executive Committee Chairs, Dan Fischer and Molly Frame, respectively, the audience heard from scientists who have conducted research related to the meeting’s theme – “Lighting our Way to a Renewable/Sustainable Energy Future.”
First up was George Crabtree, Director of the Materials Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory, who talked about “Alternative Energy for a Sustainable Future.” The world energy demand is currently about 14 terawatts of power, said Crabtree, adding that in the next 50 years, “we’ll have to take power system we have now and duplicate it.” Because of limited resources, as well as pollution concerns, traditional sources of electricity – oil, gas, and coal – won’t be able to satisfy this demand, Crabtree said. The solution, he said, requires the aggressive exploration of a mixture of alternative energy sources including hydrogen storage, solar power, and the use of superconductors.
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Next, University of Pennsylvania researcher Cherie Kagan talked about “Molecular and Nanostructured Materials for Solar Photovoltaics.” In the same way that low-cost and flexible macroelectronics, such as paper-thin video displays, are being pursued, scientists also are striving to make low-cost, high-performance solar cells, she said. Kagan highlighted advances in organic-inorganic hybrid photovoltaics, and the challenges in tailoring the materials’ chemistry.
The last speaker, University College of London researcher Ian Robinson, discussed “Uses of X-ray Coherence for Exploring Structure on the Nanoscale.” Robinson detailed the benefits of using x-ray coherence – which allows the 3-D visualization of noncrystalline objects with nanometer-scale resolution – to probe biological samples and nanomaterials. Currently a user at the Diamond Light Source, in England, and the Advanced Photon Source, at Argonne National Laboratory, Robinson said he hopes NSLS-II will push research further along the nanoscale.
Other Notables
Each year, the NSLS Users’ Executive Committee (UEC) presents the UEC Community Service Award, which honors hard work and dedication toward bettering the experience of users and the user community. UEC Chair Dan Fischer presented this year’s awards to Stony Brook University’s Jingzhu Hu and NSLS science associate Randy Smith. The annual Julian Baumert Ph.D. Thesis Award, which is given to researchers who have recently conducted a thesis project that included measurements at the NSLS, was given to Harvard University physicist Eli Sloutskin by NSLS Chair Chi-Chang Kao.
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Eight workshops were held during the three-day meeting, including: “Electrical Nanoprobes,” organized by Peter Bennett (Arizona State University) and Peter Sutter (BNL-CFN); “Applications of Synchrotron-Based Microprobe and Imaging Techniques to Studies of Human Disease,” organized by Antonio Lanzirotti (University of Chicago) and Lisa Miller (BNL-NSLS); “Material Dynamics in Strong/Extreme Fields,” organized by Larry Carr (BNL-NSLS) and Dario Arena (BNL-NSLS); “Future Directions in High-Pressure Research,” organized by Lars Ehm (Stony Brook University), Liuhua Chen (Florida International University), Baosheng Li (Stony Brook University), and Zhenxian Liu (Carnegie Institute of Washington); “Detectors,” organized by Pete Siddons (BNL-NSLS); “Nanofluids,” organized by Helmut Strey (Stony Brook University); “New Experimental Techniques for Hard X-ray Studies of In-Situ Film Growth and Surface Processing,” organized by Paul Lyman (University of Wisconsin), Randy Headrick (University of Vermont), and Karl Ludwig (Boston University); and “Interfacial Chemistry in Environmental Sciences,” organized by Jeffrey Fitts (BNL-Environmental Sciences Department) and Paul Northrup (BNL-Environmental Sciences Department).
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In addition, at the conclusion of the first day’s meeting, participants attended the annual poster session and vendor exhibition. Hors d’oeuvres were served as attendees mingled and talked, and awards were presented to the top six student and postdoc posters. Winners include: Imke Bodendiek (NSLS), Katherine Cano (George Mason University), Abdel Isakovic (NSLS), Cherno Jaye (Hunter College), Sanjaya Senanayake (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), and Lan Zhou (University of Vermont).
See the links below for highlights and photos from these workshops:
- Electrical Nanoprobes
- Applications of Synchrotron-Based Microprobe and Imaging Techniques to Studies of Human Disease
- Future Directions in High Pressure Research
- Nanofluidics
- New Experimental Techniques for Hard X-ray Studies of In-situ Film Growth and Surface Processing
- Interfacial Chemistry in Environmental Sciences
RELATED LINKS: Additional Photos | Users' Meeting Website
ARTICLE BY: Kendra Snyder