CD-3 for HL-LHC AUP
DOE has formally approved the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider Accelerator Upgrade Project (AUP) to go into series production mode, building and delivering components. Those components prominently include cutting-edge magnets designed and built with the help of ATAP and the Engineering Division. The approval, known as Critical Decision 3, or CD-3, in DOE’s project-management process, is a milestone in the U.S. contributions to the high-luminosity upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider, or HL-LHC, at the European laboratory CERN. More…
Argonne Tests Innovative Niobium-Tin Undulator
After more than 15 years of work, scientists at three DOE national laboratories have succeeded in creating and testing an advanced, more powerful superconducting magnet made of niobium and tin for use in the next generation of light sources. BCMT played important roles. The foundations of the effort build on earlier work by BCMT’s Soren Prestemon, Diego Arbelaez, and colleagues in the use of Nb3Sn in accelerator magnets and in superconducting undulator technology (for technical details, see for example this article in the International Committee for Future Accelerators Beam Dynamics Newsletter). In this project, a team led by Diego Arbelaez designed a state-of-the-art system that uses advanced computing techniques to detect quenches, or sudden transitions out of superconductivity, and protect the magnet. More…
Xiaorong Wang, Tengming Shen Elected to ASC Board
Xiaorong Wang
Tengming Shen
3Q4: Paolo Ferracin
Get to meet one of the people behind the science: Paolo Ferracin of the Superconducting Magnet Program, who recently rejoined Berkeley Lab and serves as a researcher and as deputy in our Superconducting Magnet Program. More…
A Real Virtual Presence at Applied Superconductivity Conference
In the year of the pandemic, our long relationship with ASC continued online. More…
SLAC’s Upgraded X-Ray Laser Facility Produces First Light
On July 17, 2020, the first phase of the Linac Coherent Light Source-II upgrade came into operation, producing an X-ray beam for the first time using one critical Berkeley Lab-supplied element of the newly installed equipment: the hard-X-ray undulators. More…
Three National Labs Team Up for Record-Setting HL-LHC Quadrupole Magnet
In a multiyear effort by three U.S. national laboratories, researchers have successfully built and tested a powerful new focusing magnet that represents a new use for niobium-tin, a superconducting material. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) designed, built, and tested the new magnet. More…
Director’s Award for Ian Pong
At 2019’s annual Berkeley Lab Director’s Awards ceremony, Ian Pong was honored with the Director’s Award for scientific achievement (early career category) “For technical and managerial excellence in pushing Nb3Sn superconductors and cables toward their performance limits in support of high-energy physics colliders and fusion-energy facilities through the U.S. Magnet Development Program and U.S. High-Luminosity LHC Accelerator Upgrade Project.” More…
Honoring an Iron Man of USPAS
The US Particle Accelerator School’s Winter 2020 session brought special recognition for BCMT head Soren Prestemon: the school’s Iron Man Award, recognizes those who have taught 12 classes. More…
2018 and Before
Lab Hosts IDSM01
Some 35 leading experts, representing 4 US national laboratories and other research institutions, three of their international counterparts, two universities, and a private-sector developer of superconductor, came to Berkeley Lab April 24-26, 2019, for the first Workshop on Instrumentation and Diagnostics for Superconducting Magnets (IDSM01). More…
