The Accelerator Operation Group is one of the groups in the technical division at SESAME, composed of three operators till now. The operation group works in a close collaboration with the other groups in the technical division to support and organize the accelerator’s operation, and to enhance the performance of them.
We are responsible for the round-the-clock operation of the synchrotron light source machine, working, together with the other technical groups, on delivering a stable, high quality beam to the users, and documenting the specific operation results. We are working constantly on improving beam availability, minimizing the machine downtime during the user time, coordinating & scheduling the shutdown and machine-dedicated time activities, and operation in general.
SESAME has three main accelerators: a 22MeV Microtron, 800MeV Booster and 2.5GeV Storage Ring (See Figure1) with maximum operational current 250mA, till now. The design current value is 400mA.
We offer only one filling pattern in SESAME storage ring where around 3 quarters of the storage ring are filled with electrons while the 4th one is kept empty. No other filling patterns are used yet. The Booster-to-storage ring injection is done at 800MeV, then the storage ring energy is ramped to 2.5GeV in a 6-minute period. The storage ring is running in the decay mode with only one injection per day due to the sufficient beam lifetime.
The offered 250mA beam is stable which made no need for feedback systems yet. However, a fast orbit feedback will be needed when Insertion Devices with variable-gap-operation modes are used.
The machine has been operated for a total of 3948 h in 2019, the second year of machine operation as a user facility, 2388 h of them were dedicated for users.
The machine has currently 3 operational beamlines (XAFS, IR, and Material Science beamlines) with other two beamlines (Tomography and Soft X-RAY beamlines) under construction and expected to be operational by end 2022.
Abd Al-Rahman ABU HUSSEIN
Accelerator Operator
Email: a.abuHussien@sesame.org.jo
Work Tel: +962 5 351 1348 (Ext. 254)