Chi-Chang's Corner

FY08 Budget Shortfall Presents Challenges, Difficult Decisions

February 1, 2008

Chi-Chang Kao
NSLS Department Chair
kao@bnl.gov

Archives:
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007

As a result of the deflated fiscal year 2008 science budget recently passed by Congress, the NSLS will receive $36.6 million instead of the President's original request of $43.5 million. The NSLS has been flat-funded in terms of actual dollars for the past five years, and this steady decline has put an increasing burden on our ability to provide adequate support for our users in terms of staffing and machine improvements. This latest budget shortfall will hurt the facility in a number of ways: although existing staff will be maintained, we'll be unable to hire new employees to ease the already apparent staffing shortage; machine operations will be reduced from the planned 5,000 hours per year to 4,500 hours; activities such as routine machine and beamline maintenance and upgrades, staff training, and travel to scientific conferences will be curtailed; and new instrument construction and upgrades will be significantly reduced or substantially delayed. We'll do everything possible to avoid the weakening of our scientific program, but these necessary cost-cutting measures are bound to challenge us for the duration of this year and are likely to have a negative impact in years to come. It's crucial that you continue to talk with your elected officials about the budget’s impact on our facility – as well as on basic science research across the country – and make the case for strengthened governmental support in the future.

I'd like to thank everyone who was involved in the recent winter shutdown. Both rings are now back online and a great deal of important work was completed successfully and on time. This includes major upgrade work associated with the new mini-gap undulator and the front end for the X9 small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) beamline. Beamline X9 is a new undulator-based beamline jointly developed by the NSLS and the Center for Functional Nanomaterials. Upon completion, beamline X9 will host the SAXS program that currently exists at beamline X21 and will provide much-needed beam time for the life sciences, soft condensed matter physics, and nanoscience communities. You can read more about the new beamline in this edition of eNews.

During January, one of our users burned his hand while removing a liquid helium transfer line from a storage dewar. Fortunately, there was no permanent injury, but he did have some redness and a few small blisters. Mistakes made by the user include the improper operation of the system by not relieving pressure in the dewar, and wearing only one glove while removing the transfer line. Better task-specific risk analysis and training could help prevent future accidents like this, and we will accelerate the review of beamline-specific training in the coming months. In addition, we ask that you always use proper personal protective equipment (PPE) and that you help us identify and control other potentially hidden risks.

So far, the series of Light Source Directorate planning workshops hosted by the NSLS and NSLS-II have been very well attended and received. The workshops, which will be used to guide the scientific strategic plans and beamline development for both facilities, began last month and will continue through mid-February. The users and organizers I’ve talked to were pleased with the quality of the talks given and the resulting input from current and new users. I look forward to attending the remaining sessions and encourage you to join me.

Finally, a team of researchers from Brookhaven and Yeshiva University used integrated techniques in part at the NSLS to develop a powerful method for probing materials that could help further miniaturize microelectronic components. While studying CCTO (a material made of calcium, copper, titanium, and oxygen) at the nanoscale, the researchers discovered that atomic switching at least partially results in the material's abnormally high dielectric constant – a property that promises technological applications such as the miniaturization of random access memories. You can read more about their work in this issue of eNews.