We are enjoying our new Director, Josef Hormes, who comes to us with a vision and much hope. This week we will also be moving offices out of the experimental hall and into a new office building. This should improve working conditions for a very patient staff. In January, our new director of microfabrication arrives. He is Jost Goettert from ANKA in Karlsruhe in Germany. So, the facility is really expanding in both breath and scope. Thus, 2000 should be an exciting year. CAMD is hosting a synchrotron radiation summer school on applications of SR to materials science in June. Speakers will be experts in their respective fields.
Other beamlines currently under construction include a Variable Line Spacing Grating Monochromator and a Normal Incidence Monochromator (awaiting mirror chamber). The wiggler beamline is being re-built with special considerations for radiation shielding and a bid proposal has been submitted to Oxford Instruments for the first Protein Crystallography beamline. Our staff remains at about 35 personnel with a couple of hundred users. This is quite a safety load for one person. To add to our usual workload, we have once again been invaded by paper wasps. The experts tell us that our building design is a giant monolithic homing device for these pests. They are all queens that overwinter in our experimental hall. They tend to be aggressive and are attracted to the color yellow (solvent cabinets, crane and other yellow painted safety signs). We have spent over $20,000 just trying to seal the facility. They appear to nest in our open rafters (45 feet about the storage ring) and can penetrate any hole larger than 1/8". Baiting was started last week, but has not substantially improved our quality of life, as yet. So now, in addition to radiation safety training, we also give training on what to do if a wasp stings you. Wishing everyone a healthy, happy and joyous holiday season.