It’s the start of a brand-new year. While that always brings with it a sense of renewal and hope, there’s a genuine excitement here about the year ahead. 2025 will begin the era of the upgraded Advanced Photon Source in earnest, and we’re eager to get started.
We’ve just begun the first general user run of the year, which will continue until the end of April. The first half of the run will be in standard mode, the second half in timing mode. We will continue to push the capabilities of our new storage ring to deliver the best-quality beam for user experiments. The early results we have seen from the operating beamlines have been extraordinary, a vast improvement over the properties of the previous APS beam.
Speaking of beamlines, we now have 43 beamlines in some stage of commissioning and 27 accepting users for early experiments, as you can see on the graphic below. Our team is working steadily to bring beamlines into operation as quickly as possible, and you can follow the progress with weekly updates on our website.
This is also the year we plan to finish the APS Upgrade Project, completing seven new feature beamlines that have been designed to make full use of the improved beam. Five of those are in commissioning now, with one (X-ray Photon Correlation Spectroscopy at 8-ID) bringing in users for experiments. By summer 2025, all seven will be in operation, and infrastructure for two more advanced beamlines (Atomic and 3DMN at 34-ID) will be in construction.
Of course, all of this is table-setting for the breakthroughs we know you will make with these enhanced tools. This year you’re going to see things you’ve never seen, in unprecedented detail, and faster than ever before. You’re going to gain new insights into materials you’ve been studying for years, and design and characterize new materials for a plethora of uses. You’re going to take leaps forward in chemistry, quantum materials, energy storage, microelectronics and numerous other fields.
2025 is also going to be the year of eBERlight, our new initiative to increase biological and environmental research at the APS. The goal of eBERlight is to match scientists working on soil, plant life, atmospheric and ecosystem research with the proper X-ray tools that can help them achieve their goals. For a look at some of the problems eBERlight can help solve, check out the new video below. For more information, go to www.eberlight.org.
Watch the Video
As you can see, there are plenty of reasons to believe that 2025 will be a great year at the APS. As always, the most up-to-date information on the upgraded APS will be posted on our website. We’re looking forward to seeing you at the APS this year and continuing this journey of discovery.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Lang
Director, X-ray Science Division
