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Zheshen Li (Matline)
Søren V. Hoffmann (UV, CD)
Nyk Jones (UV, CD)
Marco Bianchi (SGM3)
Henrik B. Pedersen (AMO)

Remember the animation prepared by Coldvision Studio showing the injection and storage of electrons in ASTRID? Well a brand new animation has been prepared by Coldvision Studio which now includes ASTRID2 and the top-up injection process. The images below are screenshots from the animation, but the full animation can be viewed here.

A Lego model of ASTRID2 with a scale of approimxately 1:15 has been built and is now on display at the entrance to the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

At first it was just an interesting project, to see if the Lego bricks available allowed us to reproduce the major elements of the ring in a recognizable way. When we chose the colours of the magnets in ASTRID2 in the design phase, we specifically asked them to be the colours of Lego bricks, though not with making a model in mind at that time, so colours weren’t a problem. The digital Lego model was added to and tweaked over several years until we decided that we should try and actually make it. The model is made up of about 2500 pieces. Click here to view more photos of the model.

In 2008 ISA was awarded money to build a new high brilliance synchrotron storage ring, ASTRID2. Construction of the ring began in 2011 and by April 2012 the whole ring was under vacuum and ready for testing. The first beam was injected into the ASTRID2 ring on Monday 14th May 2012 and the first full turn of ASTRID2 was accomplished on Tuesday the 10th July 2012. On the 7th of August electrons circulated the ring for almost 200 µs (1300 turns of the ring). On the 2nd of November 2012 a stored beam with RF was acheived for the first time. Commissioning of ASTRID2 proceeded well in 2013 and on the 13th of September 2013 200 mA of current was stored in ASTRID2 and top-up at 200 mA successful. In December 2013 the first external user came to do experiments on the AU-UV beam line. 2014 saw the commissioning of the AU-SGM3, AU-Matline and AU-CD beam lines, with all beam lines fully operational by mid 2014. In early 2016 the newest beam line, AMOLine, was commissioned.