A rare occurence–

Our second User Forum was on March 4, in which we discussed the purchase of a pixel-array detector for beamline 5.0.2. The exciting news since then is that we will be able to purchase a Pilatus 6M for the beamline. Expected delivery is in September of this year.

The third User Forum was on April 2, in which we discussed the diode-beamstop device which the BCSB is developing (allows measurement of flux during data collection), as well as the MiniKappa interlocks on beamline 5.0.2, which will now allow a full 360 rotation of omega (sometimes called Phi) with a maximum kappa angle of 55 degrees.

It turns out there is a small cyclotron at LBNL! It is used to produce medical isotopes used for PET scans. Some of the BCSB staff were lucky enough to be invited on a tour of the cyclotron, which is in building 56, not too far away from our more familiar synchrotron in building 6.

Congrats, beamline 8.2.1!

The Advanced Light Source is planning a major upgrade, which will result in brighter, more coherent beams. The upgrade will occur in 4-5 years, and so now is the time for the biosciences community to define our vision of synchrotron capabilites for biosciences (scattering, diffraction, tomography and IR methods) in the years to come, and…

Dectris was here at the ALS during the recent 2-bunch mode, and re-installed two of the modules on the Pilatus detector on beamline 5.0.2. Users may not have noticed, but the detector was previously missing panels on the far edges. These are now in good working order, and several test data sets have been collected…