Category Archives: science

22 November 2022
berkeley lab, english, science, science life

ALS-U CD-3

The Advanced Light Source upgrade project has received the Critical Decision 3, the very last step before we start building the facility – a $590M project for the US Department of Energy.

This is a great news for the facility, which will become the brightest soft x-ray light source in the world. I have worked on this project over the last five years, designing and simulating the new feature beamlines and developing new technologies to ensure optimal performance.

Berkeley Lab news center: Advanced Light Source Upgrade Approved to Start Construction

“Wavefront Preservation in Soft X-Ray Beamlines for the Advanced Light Source Upgrade.”
Antoine Wojdyla & Kenneth A. Goldberg
Synchrotron Radiation News, 34(6), 21–26 (2021).
https://doi.org/10.1080/08940886.2021.2022398

12 November 2022
berkeley lab, english, resources, science, science life

Penn State University (Fall 2022)

I had a great time at Penn State University, where I was positively impressed by the facilities and the people!

I mainly visited the Material Research Institute and the department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, where they are developing x-ray adaptive optics for space application together with NASA, for the Lynx project.

Millennium Science Center, Penn State University (November 2022)

Thanks Susan Trolier-McKinstry for hosting me!

10 November 2022
berkeley lab, english, epistemology, projects, resources, science life

Angela Saini at Berkeley Lab

We were pleased, as Berkeley Lab Global Employee Resource Group co-chairs, to invite and co-organize with Angela Saini at Berkeley Lab on November 9th, 2022.

Author Angela Saini in conversation with Aditi Chakravarti from the Diversity and Inclusion office at Berkeley Lab (IDEA)

More details about the event:
global.lbl.gov/events/idea-speakers-series-angela-saini

27 October 2022
art, art & science, english, resources, science

Go with the flow

I discover the beautiful fluid motion videos from Yahya Modarres-Sadeghi of the Fluid-Structure Interaction Lab at UAmherst:

fluid speckle (by Modarres-Sadeghi, FSI/UAmherst)

These images and videos just show us how much information can be gained from a random signal (the marbled incoming flow) when it is coherent (linear flow) preserve correlation in space and time.

Continue reading →

5 October 2022
art & science, english, Noble drawings, science, science life

Alain sous tous ses Aspect

Alain Aspect just received an amply deserved Nobel prize in Physics – adding one drawing to my collection of Nobel Prize drawings

Drawing by Alain Aspect (2010)

I recall bumping on him at the cafeteria at Ecole Polytechnique back in the days, and asking him questions which he often dismissed in two sentences…

Incidentally, the last time I went there in December 2019 to visit my friend Franck Delmotte (Director of study at Institute of Optics Graduate School), he was just besides us.

Alain Aspect at the Ecole Polytechnique cafeteria on December 17, 2019

1 September 2022
berkeley lab, english, resources, science

new website: dream beam

Hello everyone!

I have a new website to talk more specifically about our work on adaptive optics for coherent beamlines (the DREAM beam project.)

> dreambeam.lbl.gov <

22 August 2022
berkeley lab, english, projects, resources, science, science life

How to get the most out of a conference in person

Making the most out of a conference is a good idea! My friend Maria Zurek (former Berkeley Lab postdoc, now at Argonne) made a very interesting talk, and here are her slide:

Maria Zurek (left) and I (right) with Jeff Welser (IBM VP of research, center) and the rest of the Berkeley Lab Postdoc Association in October 2019

She gave a few great pieces of advice, here are my favorites:
– come to the conference with your slides READY. If they’re not ready, you will miss most of the social hours, where the networking happens (that’s a hard one – but very true: a conference is mostly about meeting people, not presenting your research.)

Continue reading →

18 August 2022
english, epistemology, science

Policy matters

It seems that US science may get a 50% boost very soon… If it happens, I am pretty sure amazing things will come out of it, given all the cool research I see happening these days.

Budget recommendations in the CHIPS and Science Act

1. Chips and science bill (voted, July 29, 2022)

–formerly COMPETES (House) and USICA (Senate)

–https://www.energy.gov/articles/statement-secretary-granholm-congressional-passage-chips-and-science-act
“The legislation invests $67 billion in the Department of Energy, including a $50 billion authorization for DOE’s Office of Science to enable cutting-edge research and development in clean energy to fight the climate crisis and advanced computing and manufacturing to boost American competitiveness.”

2. Inflation Reduction Act (voted, August 16)

–$300M for BES Science Facilities

3. FY2023: U.S. Senate calls for hefty research spending in 2023

Science magazine: U.S. Senate calls for hefty research spending in 2023

1 August 2022
english, science, science life

Hello, Chicago

I recently traveled to Argonne National Lab to meet with colleagues from the XSD-OPT team at the Advanced Photon Source.

Advanced Photon Source patio (July 2022)

Continue reading →

8 June 2022
berkeley lab, english, projects, science, science life

Dream beam

I am very happy to announce that was granted en Early Career Research Award by the US Department of Energy, to work on the DREAM beam: Diffraction-limited Radiation Enhancement with Adaptive Mirrors for x-ray coherent beamlines.

Here are some news releases:

They may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one

Continue reading →

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