With the start of the construction period, the Advanced Photon Source is now only a year away from re-emerging as a world-leading X-ray light source. Its brighter beams will lead to new discoveries in energy storage, materials science, medicine and more.
Today, a year-long effort to renew the Advanced Photon Source (APS), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science user facility at DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory, officially begins.
After years of planning and preparation, the team behind the APS Upgrade project will now spend the next 12 months removing the old electron storage ring at the heart of the facility, replacing it with a brand new, state-of-the-art storage ring and testing the new ring once it is in place. The team will also build seven new experiment stations, construct the needed infrastructure for two more and update nearly every existing experiment station around the APS ring.
This is an extensive project, representing an $815 million investment from DOE. When complete, the APS will re-emerge as a world leader in global hard X-ray synchrotron science, enabling unimaginable new discoveries. Science conducted at the APS will lead to longer-lasting, faster-charging batteries, more durable airplane engines and better treatments for infectious diseases, among many other discoveries.
“The APS Upgrade is not only an investment in the facility’s future, but in the next 25 years of advancements that will change the way we power our vehicles, harness renewable energy and learn more about the fundamental science that underpins our future technologies.” — Linda Horton, associate director of science for Basic Energy Sciences, U.S. Department of Energy.
“This is a significant day for Argonne,” said Argonne Director Paul Kearns. “The APS Upgrade will transform the future of science for America and the world. Once we safely complete construction, the APS will shed new light on how the brain works, develop materials to decarbonize our economy, refine quantum technologies that can power the internet of the future and answer many other questions in numerous other disciplines.”
When it’s complete, the X-ray beams generated by the upgraded APS will be up to 500 times brighter than those of the current facility. These brighter beams will allow scientists to peer more deeply inside materials, track the movements of ions inside batteries and trace the path of energy through extremely small microelectronic chips.
“What an exciting time for everyone who works on and uses the APS,” said Laurent Chapon, associate laboratory director for Photon Sciences at Argonne and director of the APS. “The scientists who conduct research at this facility, and our staff who collaborate on and support that research, contribute to innovations that affect our everyday lives. We look forward to seeing what discoveries will happen using these new capabilities.”
Upgrading the APS is a complex endeavor, one that requires hundreds of people to complete. Many of those people have already been working on this project for close to 10 years. The new storage ring is made up of 1,321 powerful electromagnets, thousands of power supply units and a thin, but lengthy vacuum system that connects everything together. It will need 32 miles of power cable, eight miles of diagnostic cable and 20 miles of optical fiber. It will be assembled in sections at an offsite location near the Argonne campus and then transported to the existing APS facility. All together, the storage ring will be about 2/3 of a mile around and will weigh about 6 million pounds.
“After nearly a decade of design, construction, assembly and testing, we are ready to implement the upgrade of this great facility,” said Jim Kerby, APS Upgrade project director. “We know that the APS has been an important part of many scientific breakthroughs over the last quarter century, and we want to get the next era of science at the APS underway as quickly as possible. Our plan is to complete the work in one year, with the safety of everyone working during this period our top priority.”
For more than 25 years, the APS has been one of the most productive X-ray light sources in the world. Research at the APS has directly contributed to two Nobel prizes and has led to new insights across many scientific fields. Most recently, scientists working at the APS helped to develop Paxlovid, Pfizer’s approved treatment for COVID-19.
“The APS has a rich history of scientific achievement,” said Linda Horton, associate director of science for Basic Energy Sciences at DOE. “The APS Upgrade is not only an investment in the facility’s future, but in the next 25 years of advancements that will change the way we power our vehicles, harness renewable energy and learn more about the fundamental science that underpins our future technologies.”
The upgraded APS is scheduled to return to operation in 2024. For the latest on the project, please visit aps.anl.gov/APS-Upgrade.
Original source can be found here.