Join us for a look back on a momentous year for ATAP, our collaborators throughout the accelerator community, and the user communities we serve.
January-February
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The new year starts fast for ATAP with co-authorship of three papers in Nature journals: BELLA Center’s successful demonstration of “staging,” or coupling of one laser-plasma accelerating module to another; participation in a demonstration with unprecedented precision that the charge of antihydrogen is zero; and technology contributions that help bring unprecedented sensitivity to spin resonance techniques, with potential applications that include quantum computing.
Workshops explore the future of plasma-based accelerators for colliders as well as high-energy-density physics with BELLA-i. The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation funds BELLA Center free-electron laser R&D. The Advanced Photoinjector Experiment enables a new instrument for ultrafast structural dynamics. And LCLS-II, being built at SLAC by a multilaboratory team that includes LBNL in prominent roles, undergoes successful readiness reviews.
March-April
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LCLS-II receives Critical Decisions 2/3 from the DOE while key contributions from ATAP and Engineering make progress. Superconducting magnets developed by ATAP together with Brookhaven, Fermilab, and CERN for the High-Luminosity LHC project undergo successful testing. |
May-June
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ATAP’s Jeroen van Tilborg and Chad Mitchell become DOE Early Career Research Program awardees while our two previous awardees, Tengming Shen and Daniele Filippetto, progress with their work. A radiofrequency quadrupole linac designed and built at LBNL receives first beam at Fermilab’s PIP-II project. André Anders receives the 2016 Nathaniel H. Sugerman Memorial Award of the Society of Vacuum Coaters, and John Byrd is recognized with the Iron Man Award of the U.S. Particle Accelerator School.
July-August
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LBNL is selected as lead laboratory of the new U.S. Magnet Development Program, led by ATAP’s Stephen Gourlay. The gun and the soft- and hard-X-ray undulators for LCLS-II phase into production. Data and modeling add up to intensity at NDCX-II. BELLA’s Henri Vincenti wins ELI’s Wolfgang Sandner Scientific Excellence Prize for Young Researchers. Graduate students Kelly Swanson and Manuel Kirchen win poster honors at the Advanced Accelerator Conference.
September-October
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Fall brought wonderful news in the form of Critical Decision Zero, the “statement of mission need” that begins a major project, for the Advanced Light Source Upgrade. This means the start of an exciting journey to a next-generation user facility for the Office of Science, LBNL, and ATAP. |
Organizing to take advantage of the many new opportunities before us, David Robin is named ALS-U Project Director as Fernando Sannibale becomes head of the ALS Accelerator Physics Program. ATAP launches a new Accelerator Modeling Program headed by Jean-Luc Vay. Soren Prestemon becomes director of the Berkeley Center for Magnet Technology as Stephen Gourlay assumes directorship of the LBNL-led, multi-lab U.S. Magnet Development Program.
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Shlomo Caspi wins the IEEE Award for Continuing and Significant Contributions in the Field of Large Scale Applications of Superconductivity, and the ALS Brightness Upgrade Team receives the prestigious Secretary of Energy Achievement Award. ATAP Division Director Wim Leemans wins the IEEE Particle Accelerator Science and Technology Award, and Cameron Geddes and Christoph Steier are named as Fellows of the American Physical Society.
November-December
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Our contributions to LCLS-II make progress through fabrication and testing. Highly collaborative work that includes our Accelerator Modeling Program offers a potential solution to a vexing problem with particle-in-cell plasma modeling. An ATAP-led collaborative project aimed at “coherent pulse stacking,” with the goal of ultrafast fiber lasers with high peak and average power, achieves both temporal and spatial combining of pulses. |
Our progress is made possible by our people, and we look forward to what they accomplish in the New Year…
