The first synchrotron infrared beamlines at the Advanced Light Source: Spectromicroscopy and fast timing

Two recently commissioned infrared beamlines on the 1.4 bending magnet port at the Advanced Light Source, LBNL, are described. Using a synchrotron as an IR source provides three primary advantages: increased brightness, very fast light pulses, and enhanced far-IR flux. The considerable brightness ad vantage manifests itself most beneficially when performing spectroscopy on a microscopic length scale. Beamline (BL) 1.4.3 is a dedicated FTIR spectro microscopy beamline, where a diffraction-limited spot size using the synchr otron source is utilized. BL 1.4.2 consists of a vacuum FTIR bench with a w ide spectral range and step-scan capability. This BL makes use of the pulse d nature of the synchrotron light as well as the far-IR flux. Fast timing i s demonstrated by observing the pulses from the electron bunch storage patt ern at the ALS. Results from several experiments from both IR beamlines wil l be presented as an overview of the IR research currently being done at th e ALS.