The Advanced Photon Source Upgrade is focused on delivering a powerful, versatile facility for science with high-brightness, high-energy X-rays. At the APS, and around the U.S. light source community, scientists have been developing storage ring designs to push closer to the ultimate diffraction limit for X-ray sources. A recent report by the Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (BESAC), which advises the Director of the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, has recommended leveraging such “multi-bend achromat” (MBA) technology to boost research tools used by innovators in academia, industry and National Laboratories. This emerging technology could provide orders-of-magnitude improvement in coherent flux for imaging with wavelength-limited spatial resolution and for nanoprobes utilizing the full array of powerful X–ray contrast modes, from diffraction to resonant inelastic X-ray scattering. Moreover, the development of such capabilities will be essential if U.S. light sources are to remain world-leading in an increasingly competitive international environment.

Argonne and the APS are evaluating the incorporation of this MBA technology into the ongoing APS Upgrade project. This would solidify the APS's role as the nation's premier high-energy light source and ensure that the U.S. retains its leadership as a global hub for innovation by maintaining leadership in X-ray light source technology.

As part of this effort, the APS will be engaging the community to optimize the scientific capabilities that could be obtained from an MBA lattice design. A preliminary design study indicates that the X-ray brightness would be increased by more than a factor of 100, and the X-ray flux would also be improved. An initial summary of the expected performance characteristics of an MBA lattice at APS is available at APS-Upgrade/Documents. We will discuss the current state of the design with the community at the upcoming monthly operations meeting on August 28.

In the coming six weeks, APS staff and management will arrange discussions with representatives from current APS beamlines, scientific interest groups, user organizations and stakeholders. In parallel, staff will continue to optimize accelerator and beamline design parameters to incorporate this transformative technology into the APS Upgrade. These discussions will culminate in a joint meeting at APS on October 21-22 to discuss the scientific opportunities and design goals and summarize them in a report. Users will be notified as more details become available about the October workshop.

The workshop report will be reviewed by the full APS Scientific Advisory Committee at its meeting on November 6-7.