Canadian Light Source starts

Commissioning of the Canadian Light Source (CLS) has achieved several milestones on its way to experimental operation, expected to commence in the second quarter of 2004. After two months of pre-commissioning, a 2.9 GeV electron beam has been stored in the CLS storage ring. On 18 November 2003 it was first stored for 1 s (and then lost during the next injection cycle). The following day the beam was `stacked' to a current of 4 mA and stored for 20 min. By the end of December, 10 mA beams were being run with lifetimes of about 1 h.

The CLS storage ring features a compact design (171 m circumference) with magnets operating at the limit of conventional technology. It is the first dedicated synchrotron radiation source that is utilizing the superconducting RF source.

Higher currents will be attempted once the orbit has been corrected. Vertical orbit correction is very near the design goal of ±1.5 mm, and horizontal orbit correction has begun.

On 9 December the first light was extracted from the storage ring into the optical synchrotron radiation beamline. Also in December, extensive radiation surveys were performed. Design of the final configuration of the radiation shielding is now underway.

The procurement of the first seven beamlines and insertion devices has been completed. Installation of the first beamline components has started, along with the installation of the first radiation enclosures and front ends. The expectation is that four of the beamlines will be under commissioning in the first quarter of 2004, with the remaining three starting commissioning in the second and third quarters. The first operational beamlines will be the far-IR, mid-IR and three soft X-ray beamlines (SGM, VLS-PGM and spectromicroscopy), followed by two hard X-ray beamlines (protein crystallography and XAFS/microprobe).

Canadian synchrotron radiation users, who have been active on many synchrotrons, can now look forward to their own national source. Like in so many other cases, this is expected to catalyse a significant growth of the Canadian synchrotron radiation scientific community.