The advanced light source at Lawrence Berkeley laboratory: a new tool for research in atomic physics

Abstract

The Advanced Light Source, a third-generation national synchrotron-radiation facility now under construction at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, is scheduled to begin serving qualified users across a broad spectrum of research areas in the spring of 1993. Based on a low-emittance electron storage ring optimized to operate at 1.5 GeV, the ALS will have 10 long straight sections available for insertion devices (undulators and wigglers) and 24 high-quality bend-magnet ports. The short pulse width (30–50 ps) will be ideal for time-resolved measurements. Undulators will generate high-brightness partially coherent soft X-ray and ultraviolet (XUV) radiation from below 10 eV to above 2 keV; this radiation is plane polarized. Wigglers and bend magnets will extend the spectrum by generating high fluxes of X-rays to photon energies above 10 keV. The ALS will have an extensive research program in which XUV radiation is used to study matter in all its varied gaseous, liquid, and solid forms. The high brightness will open new areas of research in the materials sciences, such as spatially resolved spectroscopy (spectromicroscopy), and in biology, such as X-ray microscopy with element-specific sensitivity; the high flux will allow measurements in atomic physics and chemistry to be made with tenuous gas-phase targets. Technological applications could include lithography and nano-fabrication.