First, season's greetings to all our accelerator community friends both in the U.S. and abroad: warmest wishes from beautiful, sunny, warm Baton Rouge. We have been a bit cooler than normal, but at least we don't have to contend with any white stuff like our friends to the north and northeast.
The Center for Advanced Microstructures and Devices (CAMD) has been extremely busy this year. That is part of the reason I have been unable to be a consistent contributor to this bulletin. Our protein crystallography (PX) beamline is heavily subscribed. With the new homeland security measures in place, we have to review and approve all biological samples. In addition, we have brought in a small-angle scattering beamline, a new high-energy (wiggler) lithography beamline, and, just last week, an extremely bright infrared beamline. We have also converted our SAXS and double-crystal monochromator (DCM) beamlines so that they contain pink beam hutches that are separate from the end station hutches. This allows beam to warm the crystals while permitting access to the beamline through the introduction of a second series of Bremsstrahlung shutters. We continue to have 24 x 7 operation (actually 24 x 6 every other week to permit a day or a half-day of machine studies). This stretches the limits of the radiation safety staff (yes, it's still only yours truly).
Some of you might know that in addition to my duties as the radiation safety officer out here, I also hold responsibility for chemical safety, industrial hygiene, industrial safety (from forklifts to cranes), and anything else that comes up. We are in the process of putting in a large electroplating station. This means a fair number of weekend and evening calls. In addition, I have lost my 1/2 graduate assistant and there is no intention to replace him. One can get spoiled in 13 years of consistent help.
CAMD continues to grow. With well over 200 rad workers, it represents the largest single user group of Louisiana State University's (LSU's) broad-scope license. At the LSU level, the radiation safety officer retired but remains the system-wide radiation safety officer (two medical schools, LSU, a dental school, and six other campuses). The new LSU radiation safety officer came on board in June. Thus, many changes are in place. We also have some interesting projects at CAMD that are more complicated from the radiation safety point of view including a hafnium isotope-triggering experiment from Sandia National Lab.
A substantial portion of my time has been spent evaluating the effect of having sold a property adjacent to the CAMD site. Some of you who are familiar with the South's only synchrotron ring are aware that the CAMD storage ring has no roof; hence, the concern regarding potential radiation dose at the CAMD site boundary and beyond. It took a great deal of effort to get my simulations to agree with our thermoluminescent dosimeter (TLD) values. This was primarily because at 200-MeV injections, we have a tremendous amount of self-shielding to take into account. Length, breadth, and height for each element in the ring had to be placed in the model. Another variable was to determine the length of the line source to be used for the model. In the end, our simulations did agree with the TLD measurements in direct line of sight to the line source(s). Of course, we also had to model stored beam. After these calculations were completed, we had to replace our gun. Our injections now last only tens of seconds instead of one to two minutes and efficiency appears to be way up (at least 90%). Thus, our parameters have changed (for the better), so the old calculations ought to be conservative.
The Deep South Chapter of the Health Physics Society is hosting the 2005 midyear meeting in New Orleans. As the meeting point-of-contact, I'd like to challenge the Accelerator Section to work hard to get abstracts so that we can host an accelerator session. I would also like to explore the possibility of hosting a half-day accelerator session at CAMD (approximately 80 miles from New Orleans) on ANSI N43.1, uniform safety systems, or some other topic of general interest. Anyone wishing to pursue this idea may contact me by e-mail at day@lsu.edu. This might be good planning for our proposed accelerator topical in 2007.
Meanwhile, Happy New Year and I look forward to meeting with you again very soon. I send you Greek blessings of honey, wheat, and laughter.