CAMD Logo

Center for Advanced Microstructures and Devices

News from CAMD

Lorraine Day
CAMD came out of a scheduled one month shutdown on September 20. The past month has been spent trying to vacuum condition the ring with all the inherent problems that entails for operational physics. We also encountered an X-ray stream from an opened photon shutter on our zero degree port from our wiggler beamline. This is our first facility experience with such a beamline and quite an interesting and challenging experience it has been. As many of you know, the CAMD synchrotron ring (1.5 GeV) is rather unique in that it has no roof. As predicted, we are starting to get some skyshine problems and are addressing the source terms now.

On October 1, Professor Josef Hormes took over as the new Director at CAMD. He was previously a professor of physics at Bonn University and is well experienced in synchrotron radiation. His group has had an on-site presence at CAMD for the past five years and Dr. Hormes spent a sabbatical year at CAMD in 1997. So he is a known and respected addition to the CAMD family. His group has built double crystal monochromators for the CAMD ring. Dr. Hormes actively supervises 19 Ph.D. students. He and his students are a tremendous asset to our little band of 35.

CAMD has recently been named a Center of Excellence in Biological Sciences, subsequent to obtaining joint NIH and NSF funding for protein crystallography. The initial beamline is being designed by Oxford Instruments, England with the participation of CAMD accelerator physics and optics staff. CAMD is already recognized as a DOE Center for Excellence in Microfabrication. In January, we will have a new director for the microfabrication sector at CAMD. He is Jost Goettert, of ANKA in Karlsruhe, Germany. Jost spent a year as an Associate Professor at CAMD's sister microfabrication institute - The Institute for Micromanufacturing (IfM) located at Northwestern Louisiana University, in Ruston Louisiana. IfM maintains two microfabrication beamlines at CAMD. Jost has conducted several experiments at CAMD, so he too, is well known.

As you can see, CAMD is spreading its wings - new projects, new funding, great people. All this keeps the Health Physics staff (myself and a graduate student) hopping. There have been more than a few late nights and more to come - but so exciting!