Recovery commissioning at the Japanese synchrotron, The Photon Factory

As reported in the previous news article, "Influence of the M9 class earthquake on synchrotron facilities in Japan", No.3, Vol. 40 (2011)), the Photon Factory, located to the north of Tsukuba city in Ibaraki prefecture, had to cancel all beamtime allocated in the term from May to September 2011. However, scientists have devoted a great deal of time and effort to recovery work, and on May 16, the ring became capable of storing electron beams, and generating synchrotron radiation. Recovery commissioning at each beamline started in the 4^th week of May. Many users are involved in test experiments with their own samples. Some readers may be interested in the status of BL-4A, which is the beamline for X-ray fluorescence spectroscopic analysis. Recovery at the beamline appears more or less complete. Some data taken on March 10, one day before the earthquake, were reproduced almost perfectly. Commissioning will continue until early July. For further information, visit the Web page, http://www.kek.jp/ja/news/highlights/2011/PF_recovery.html (only in Japanese language).