Tag: facility upgrade

Gabriella Carini named CHESS director as facility readies for the future

Gabriella Carini named CHESS director as facility readies for the future

Gabriella Carini has been appointed director of the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS). 

She will begin Oct. 1.

Carini, who has held leadership positions at the Brookhaven laboratory and at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory for more than two decades, currently oversees Brookhaven’s scientific programs in instrumentation, accelerator science, quantum technologies, microelectronics and advanced research infrastructure.  

Carini is appointed a professorship in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in the Cornell Duffield College of Engineering. 

The appointment comes at a pivotal moment for CHESS, the only synchrotron located at and operated by a university in the United States. As scientific challenges grow increasingly complex and interdisciplinary, CHESS is expanding its capabilities through major investments in advanced instrumentation, high magnetic field science, artificial intelligence-driven experimentation and new beamlines designed to serve emerging scientific communities.

”Gabriella brings a remarkable combination of scientific vision, technical expertise and leadership experience to this role,” Provost Kavita Bala said. “As an internationally recognized leader in her field, she understands both the cutting-edge technologies that advance modern discovery and the collaborative culture required to operate a world-class user facility. We are delighted to welcome Gabriella to Cornell.”

Carini succeeds Joel Brock, who will step down on Oct. 1 after serving as CHESS director since 2013. During his tenure, Brock oversaw significant modernization efforts, strengthened the facility’s national user program, guided the completion of the CHESS-U upgrade and navigated a new partner-funding model.

Read more on the CHESS website

Harry Westfahl Jr. appointed as next Director of the ALBA Synchrotron

Harry Westfahl Jr. appointed as next Director of the ALBA Synchrotron

He will succeed Caterina Biscari, who has led the facility since 2012, and will oversee the transition to ALBA II, the next-generation synchrotron.

The Rector Council of the ALBA Synchrotron has appointed Harry Westfahl Jr. as the next Director. He will take office in November this year, taking over on Caterina Biscari, who has led ALBA since 2012, consolidating a period of major scientific and institutional growth for the facility.

He joins ALBA at a pivotal moment. Following the approval of the ALBA II upgrade project, he will lead the transformation into a fourth-generation research infrastructure, expanding its scientific capabilities and strengthening its strategic role for the country.

Harry Westfahl Jr. is a physicist with broad experience in synchrotron science, instrumentation, and leading large-scale research infrastructures. He has developed most of his scientific career at the Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory (LNLS), where he has held senior leadership positions, including Scientific Director and Director since 2020. He played a central role in the development of Sirius, the Brazilian fourth-generation synchrotron light source. He led the scientific strategy and beamline program and brought it through its final construction phase and operation.

Caterina Biscari heartily welcomes the appointment, saying “ALBA enters its most ambitious phase since its construction. Harry’s experience and proven scientific, technological and managerial excellence make him the ideal person to guide ALBA II and continue strengthening our national and international impact”.

Harry Westfahl Jr. says: “I am honoured by the trust placed in me by the Rector Council, and delighted to join ALBA as its next Director. ALBA is entering a decisive and very promising phase, and I take up this responsibility with respect and admiration for what Caterina Biscari and the ALBA team have built. The ALBA team can count on my full commitment, and I look forward to working closely with the Rector Council, the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades and the Departament de Recerca i Universitats, and with the scientific, technological, and industrial communities in Spain and beyond. Together, we will work to strengthen ALBA’s scientific impact today and bring ALBA II into operation as a transformative research infrastructure for Spain and Europe.”

Read more on the ALBA website

John Hill Named Director of Brookhaven National Laboratory

John Hill Named Director of Brookhaven National Laboratory

Brookhaven Science Associates (BSA) has named physicist John Hill as director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, effective May 21. Hill is a longtime employee at Brookhaven Lab. He has served as interim lab director since September 2025.

BSA’s board of directors selected Hill after a competitive international search. Hill will also serve as BSA’s president. BSA — a partnership between Stony Brook University and Battelle — manages and operates Brookhaven Lab on behalf of DOE’s Office of Science.

“We are delighted to have John Hill selected to lead Brookhaven National Laboratory at a pivotal moment for science and national impact,” said BSA Board Chair and Battelle’s Executive Vice President of National Laboratory Management & Operations Juan Alvarez. “He brings the leadership and vision needed to advance the Lab’s future — delivering transformative discovery through the Electron-Ion Collider and accelerating impact across AI and embodied intelligence, distributed quantum systems, microelectronics, and a future upgrade to the Lab’s National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II). Under John’s leadership, we are confident Brookhaven will continue to expand its science-ready infrastructure and strategic public-private partnerships in service to the nation.”

As director, Hill will work with stakeholders including DOE, policymakers, collaborating institutions, and community members as he leads Brookhaven toward strategic growth and scientific opportunity.

“I am thrilled that, following a very competitive international search, John Hill has emerged as the very best leader for Brookhaven National Laboratory at this exciting juncture,” said BSA Board Co-Chair and Stony Brook University President Andrea Goldsmith. “John’s deep expertise, vision, and leadership skills will be essential as the Lab looks to usher in a new era of fundamental physics discovery at the Electron-Ion Collider, while continuing its groundbreaking research in quantum systems, AI, microelectronics, materials science, and high-resolution imaging. Stony Brook is proud to co-manage and partner with Brookhaven to advance the frontiers of discovery to benefit our country’s innovation, economic vitality, and national security. John’s leadership will be essential to ensuring the Lab’s success and impact long into the future.”

Read more on the BNL website

Image: John Hill is pictured during his first all-hands meeting with Lab staff as interim director in 2025. His appointment as director was announced to staff today at another all-staff gathering.

Credit: Kevin Coughlin/Brookhaven National Laboratory

Towards ALBA II: A new high-stability girder system

Towards ALBA II: A new high-stability girder system

The ALBA Synchrotron has developed a new girder system designed to meet the demanding mechanical stability requirements of ALBA II, the upcoming upgrade of the facility. These girders are key structures that support magnets, vacuum chambers, and diagnostic systems while ensuring their precise alignment along the accelerator.

In particle accelerators, girders are critical mechanical structures that must maintain the position of components with micrometre accuracy, while suppressing drifts and vibrations that could degrade beam quality. Even minimal vibrations or mechanical deviations can affect the trajectory and properties of the electron beam, having a large impact on the photon beam at the beamlines.

These girders must provide an excellent stability against external vibrations and good thermal stability, including high adjustment precision, with acceptable manufacturing costs.

While the current ALBA storage ring operates with 264 magnets distributed in 32 girders, the future machine will integrate 760 magnets in 80 girders within the same circumference, dramatically increasing the density of components, with distance between magnets as small as 10 mm. Such compactness introduces additional constraints like tighter spatial tolerances between components, and reduced margins for alignment errors.

To address these challenges, the new girder system must achieve positioning accuracies on the order of 50 micrometres between adjacent magnets, while maintaining long-term stability despite environmental and structural changes, such as slab deformation or temperature changes.

Read more on the ALBA website

Image: Girder Prototypes installed at the ALBA experimental hall with dummy magnets ready for testing

Credit: ALBA

Groundbreaking instrument back online, marking a key milestone in high-energy upgrade to SLAC’s X-ray laser

Groundbreaking instrument back online, marking a key milestone in high-energy upgrade to SLAC’s X-ray laser

The X-ray Pump Probe instrument is returning to normal operations this spring and will see a major capability boost when the high-energy beam comes online near the end of 2027.

Key takeaways:

  • XPP, an instrument at SLAC’s X-ray laser that has enabled groundbreaking science, is returning to normal operations this spring after a year-long rebuild.
  • The overhaul is a key milestone for the ongoing high-energy upgrade to the Linac Coherent Light Source.
  • It will see a major capability boost when the high-energy beam comes online toward the end of 2027. 

XPP, the X-ray Pump Probe instrument at the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), is back online and welcoming researchers after a complete rebuild. The overhaul has readied XPP for the significant increase in X-ray output expected from the ongoing high-energy upgrade to LCLS at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. LCLS is a pioneering X-ray free-electron laser facility used by scientists around the world to capture ultrafast snapshots of natural processes.

“Completing the XPP rebuild on-time and on-budget is a key milestone for the high-energy upgrade effort, and we’re thrilled that the instrument is back to supporting researchers from around the world,” said John Hogan, project director for the LCLS high-energy upgrade. “This was a huge team effort, involving partners across SLAC’s engineering, science and project teams.” 

Since its 2010 debut, XPP has enabled groundbreaking research across materials science – from quantum information storage to material dynamics across timescales – as well as studies in chemistry, physics and bioscience. Researchers have leveraged XPP to pioneer X-ray optics technologies, including cavity-based X-ray oscillators that are shaping future X-ray free-electron laser facilities. 

The recent, year-long rebuild prepared XPP for the upcoming high-energy upgrade to LCLS, which began in 2025 and will take about two years to complete. After the upgrade, LCLS will produce high-energy X-rays at repetition rates up to a million pulses per second, enabling XPP to gather more data, achieve higher spatial resolution and support a wider range of experiments. 

“In 2010, XPP became the first instrument in the world to use hard X-rays from an X-ray free-electron laser,” said Takahiro Sato, XPP instrument lead. “It’s been an instrument we’ve used to develop new experimental tools and techniques and to showcase ultrafast science. With this upgrade, we’re enabling it to remain at the forefront of this field.” 

To ready XPP for the major increase in photons, higher energies and associated heat loads, teams stripped out the entire instrument, removing legacy components and rebuilding the instrument with new and refurbished parts. 

A key addition is a Large Offset Double Crystal Monochromator, which will be cryo-cooled using liquid nitrogen to approximately minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit to handle increased heat loads and minimize temperature fluctuations during experiments. 

The team also upgraded the multiplexing system, which can split the LCLS X-ray beam in two – directing one stream to XPP while sending another downstream to other instruments – so multiple experiments can run at once. The new multiplexing system replaces the old one and is more reliable and stable. 

Read more on the SLAC website

Image: Juan Perez (front) and Aaron Butcher (back) install a Large Offset Double Crystal Monochromator (LODCM) in LCLS’s XPP hutch, which filters the incoming X-ray beam to a precise energy before it reaches the experiment.

Credit: Olivier Bonin/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

A duo for BESSY III light source

A duo for BESSY III light source

Since 1 March 2026, Renske van der Veen and Andreas Jankowiak have formed the leadership team of BESSY III. Together, they will drive forward HZB’s central project: the planning and realisation of BESSY III light source in Berlin-Adlershof. Here, they talk about their motivation, the next steps, and why BESSY III is a a cross-generational project.

Dear Renske, dear Andreas, a new chapter for our huge BESSY III project is now beginning with you. What do you bring to the table?

Renske van der Veen: Energy and enthusiasm for the project and also for teamwork! I love working with lots of people to achieve something big. For me, BESSY III is a fantastic opportunity to put all this into practice, and I also bring the necessary pragmatism to the table.

Andreas Jankowiak: I bring 15 years of experience at HZB in various management positions and experience from different committees. For example, I have been chairing the machine advisory committee of Diamond II (successor to Diamond, UK) for six years. This gives me a sense of what is happening around us in this field and how things are developing there. I am also enthusiastic that we are a research centre with our own strong research profile, which benefits greatly from our large-scale facility BESSY. For me, this connection is an absolute added value.

Read more on the HZB website

Image: Renske van der Veen und Andreas Jankowiak take over the scientific and technical projectlead of BESSY III light source

Credit: © HZB / Florentine Krawatzek

European XFEL celebrates a successful restart

European XFEL celebrates a successful restart

European XFEL today celebrated the restart of the world’s largest X-ray laser with a ceremony attended by Hamburg’s Senator for Science Maryam Blumenthal and Guido Wendt, State Secretary in Schleswig-Holstein’s Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Culture. This was preceded by a so-called Long Installation and Maintenance Period (LIMP) with maintenance work and numerous upgrades to the infrastructure in underground tunnels and the scientific instruments on the European XFEL campus.

Employees of European XFEL and DESY, who were significantly involved in the extensive work, watched as Blumenthal and Wendt started the electron accelerator with a click of a mouse. Electron packets now speed again through the accelerator section to the so-called dump after about two-thirds of the 3.4-kilometre-long facility. The remaining parts of the X-ray laser, where the X-ray light is generated using the accelerated electrons, and the experiment stations will go into operation in the coming days and weeks. After more than seven months, the facility will be available to researchers again from mid-April.

Innovations for scientific excellence

At the ceremony in the Lighthouse visitor centre, European XFEL Managing Director Prof. Thomas Feurer emphasized the importance of the modification and upgrade work for the long-term performance, reliability and scientific excellence of the large-scale research facility. In addition to the successful maintenance work, for which the accelerator, which normally operates at minus 271 degrees Celsius, was warmed to room temperature and then cooled down again, teams from European XFEL and the DESY research centre installed numerous technical innovations to further expand the research options at the X-ray laser. Important upgrades include the new GUN5 electron source, which enables a pulse rate that is around 30 percent higher, and the expansion of beamlines and instruments for attosecond experiments, which can be used to observe ultrafast processes such as the formation of chemical bonds. In addition, preparatory work has been completed for the installation of superconducting undulators, which will deliver particularly short and highly intense X-ray pulses with very short wavelengths, enabling researchers to achieve even better resolution, among other things.

Read more on the European XFEL website

Image: Thomas Feurer emphasized the smooth cooperation between European XFEL and DESY, involving many teams from different disciplines.

Credit: European XFEL