Message About ALS-U’s Impact on SEES Community

Dear SEES community,

SEES supports a variety of synchrotron X-ray applications at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) to support geoscience research, including:
– In situ X-ray diffraction studies at high pressure and/or temperature for deep Earth and planetary studies;
– Scanning transmission soft X-ray microscopy (STXM) and ptychography for low temperature geochemistry / environmental research;
– New support for tomographic studies, including rock deformation applications.

The ALS has recently announced its expected schedule leading into a dark period for the ALS-U upgrade. ALS expects to host users in the 2026-1 cycle (February 2 – July 2), have a period with no user operations in 2026-2, return to user operations in the 2027-1 cycle, and then shut down for 2 years or more, beginning possibly as soon as May 2027.

SEES encourages interested users to be aware of this schedule and to continue seeking experiment time at SEES-supported facilities at ALS during the 2026-1 and 2027-1 active user cycles, before the extended dark period begins. For these two cycles, beamtime requests on existing proposals are being honored but no new General User proposals will be accepted. Instead, users seeking time at ALS who do not already have active proposals are encouraged to apply through the Director’s Discretionary (DD) beamtime program in the RAPIDD system.

Users should reach out to beamline staff in advance for guidance preparing RAPIDD proposals. RAPIDD proposals are best submitted well before the beginning of the run cycle, so please reach out soon for access in 2026-1. Recommended contact personnel for ALS beamlines are listed below:

In situ XRD program (beamline 12.2.2): Kat Armstrong
SYSTER program for soft X-ray applications (5.3.2, 7.0.1.2, 11.0.2.2): Lim Kang
Computed X-ray microtomography program (8.3.2): Dula Parkinson or Liz Clark