1. CROSSLINK DENSITY OF SUPERABSORBENT POLYMERS
by Art Robinson
(Contacts: gemitchell@dow.com, harald_ade@ncsu.edu)

Often viewed as primarily a tool for basic research, synchrotron radiation nonetheless has its share of industrial users looking for solutions to their problems. At the ALS, researchers from The Dow Chemical Company teamed with academic colleagues to conduct x-ray spectromicroscopy studies of superabsorbent polymers (SAPs), materials with a $2 billion annual market for a wide range of products including disposable baby diapers. The experiments were such a success that Dow has been able to use the results to help develop the process technology now being designed for a new SAP-manufacturing plant. Because of this and related work on x-ray spectromicroscopy of polymeric materials, Dow's Analytical Sciences division has conferred on two of the Dow researchers its highest internal award.

Read the full story at http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/science/sci_archive/superabsorb.html.

Publication about this research: G.E. Mitchell, L.R. Wilson, M.T. Dineen, S.G. Urquhart, F. Hayes, E.G. Rightor, A.P. Hitchcock, and H.W. Ade, "Quantitative Characterization of Microscopic Variations in the Crosslink Density of Gel" (submitted 2001).

2. BERKELEY-STANFORD SYNCHROTRON SUMMER SCHOOL ANNOUNCED
(Contacts: attwood@eecs.berkeley.edu, nilsson@ssrl.slac.stanford.edu)

The first Berkeley-Stanford Summer School on Synchrotron Radiation and Its Applications will be held at the Clark Kerr campus of the University of California, Berkeley, July 8-14, 2001. The program will include basic lectures on the synchrotron radiation process, requisite technologies, and a broad range of scientific applications. Visits to both the ALS in Berkeley and the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory will be included, with opportunities to interact with professional staff and graduate students at both facilities. The summer school will be limited to approximately forty graduate students, with a preference for those pursuing doctoral research in the physical sciences in which synchrotron radiation is expected to play a significant role. Co-chairs for this first summer school are David Attwood (attwood@eecs.berkeley.edu) and Anders Nilsson (nilsson@ssrl.slac.stanford.edu).

Details about the summer school, planned lectures, housing, and costs will be posted soon at http://www.unex.berkeley.edu/eng/synchrotron. Cost of attendance will be $595 for the one-week course (Sunday afternoon through Saturday morning), including lectures, shared room, meals, and local transportation from the lecture site to the two synchrotron radiation facilities. Applications should include a brief academic record, a statement describing the intended research area and how a knowledge of synchrotron radiation would enhance those studies, a list of publications (if any), and information on how to reach the applicant by email and phone through the period extending to the time of the summer school. Applications can be sent electronically to Course6@unx.berkeley.edu or by mail to Jenny Black Deer/Joan Shao, Berkeley-Stanford Summer School, University of California Extension, 1995 University Avenue, MC 7010, Berkeley, CA 94720-7010.

3. JOB OPPORTUNITIES AT THE ALS

Listed below are a few ALS-related positions that are currently available. For more detailed information on a specific job, go to the Berkeley Lab Current Job Opportunities Web page (http://cjo.lbl.gov/) and perform a keyword search on the Job Requisition Number (shown below in parentheses). For a complete listing of ALS-related openings (including engineering, computing, and administrative), search on the keywords "Advanced Light Source."

X-Ray Optics Postdoc (011904). Work on the development of microfocus x-ray optics based on mirror systems and in their application to micro x-ray absorption spectroscopy and microdiffraction. One-year appointment with the possibility of renewal.

Synchrotron Infrared Postdoc (012765). Develop and enhance the far-infrared facilities at the ALS. One-year appointment with the possibility of renewal.

Solid State Physics Postdoc (013071). Perform research into charge and orbital ordering in strongly correlated materials. One-year appointment with the possibility of renewal.

Associate Beamline Scientist (012963). Assist scientists in a wide variety of experiments and coordinate the activities of engineering, facilities, and administrative staff to provide optimal beamline and experiment support.

Beamline Scientist (013122). Operate synchrotron-based instumentation, assist in developing an active community of scientists interested in carrying out forefront research through collaboration with ALS users and through your own research, and have primary responsibility for day-to-day beamline operation.

Biophysicist Scientist/Engineer (013011). Provide technical and scientific support for users at the Berkeley Center for Structural Biology at the Advanced Light Source. Develop methodology and instrumentation for collecting and analyzing crystallographic data using synchrotron radiation. Participate in projects involving the structure determination of biological molecules and biomolecular complexes.

4. WHO'S IN TOWN: A SAMPLING OF ALS USERS

Following are some of the experimenters who will be collecting data during the next two weeks at the ALS.

Beamline 1.4.3
Jessica Preciado, Ralph Greif, Boris Rubinsky (Univ. of California, Berkeley)
Chad Leidy, John Crowe (Univ. of California, Davis)
T.J. Wilkinson, Dale Perry (Berkeley Lab)
Felicia Betancourt and Bob Glaeser (Univ. of California, Berkeley, and Berkeley Lab)
Hoi-Ying Holman (Berkeley Lab)

Beamline 7.3.1.1
Boris Sinkovic (Univ. of Connecticut)
Kannan Krishnan (Berkeley Lab)
Harald Ade (North Carolina State Univ.)

Beamline 9.3.2
Allen Johnson (Univ. of Nevada, Las Vegas)

Beamline 8.0.1
Paul Alivisatos, Erik Scher (Univ. of California, Berkeley)
Christoph Bostedt, Tony Van Buuren (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)
Satish Myneni (Princeton Univ.)
Anders Nilsson (Stanford Univ.)

Beamline 10.3.1
Dale Perry (Berkeley Lab)

5. OPERATIONS UPDATE
(Contact: Lampo@lbl.gov)

For the user runs of February 27 - March 4 and March 5 - 11, the beam availability was 98%. Of the scheduled beam, 87% was delivered to completion without interruption. There were no significant outages.

Long-term and weekly operations schedules are available on the Web (http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/accelinfo.html). Requests for special operations use of the "scrubbing" shift should be sent to Bruce Samuelson (BCSamuelson@lbl.gov, x4738) by 1:00 p.m. Friday. The Accelerator Status Hotline at (510) 486-6766 (ext. 6766 from Lab phones) features a recorded message giving up-to-date information on the operational status of the accelerator.

LBNL/PUB-848
Editors: lstamura@lbl.gov, alrobinson@lbl.gov, amgreiner@lbl.gov

This work was supported by the Director, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC03-76SF00098.