Advanced light source upgrade approved

The Advanced Light Source (ALS) is a US Department of Energy scientific user facility at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and was built in 1993, plans for the upgrade started in 2016.

Berkeley Lab has received federal approval to begin the upgrade (titled ALS-U) and the US$590 million project is now set to go underway.

The ALS x-rays are 'soft' meaning they reveal certain properties of materials like the electronic structure. The X-rays circumambulate the perimeter of the 600-foot storage ring with the help of magnets and pass information through to researchers at different stations. The upgrade will have a new storage ring with more sophisticated magnets that can localise the electrons to only a few microns wide, creating images with finer resolution in a shorter time.

The upgraded ALS will help all sectors of materials science by improving the understanding at the small scale. Berkeley Lab Director, Michael Witherell, says, ‘The ALS upgrade is an amazing engineering undertaking that is going to give us an even more powerful scientific tool… I can’t wait to see the many ways researchers use it to improve the world and tackle some of the biggest challenges facing society today.’

The hard work begins now with a target finish of three years. Daniela Leitner, ALS-U Removal and Installation Lead, talks about the challenges they will face, ‘The biggest challenge for ALS-U is space… We are literally measuring whether we can put a hand into a particular area.’

For more information on the upgrade see https://als.lbl.gov/als-u/overview/