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MAX IV Laboratory[edit]

MAX IV Laboratory, a national laboratory hosted by Lund University, has operated successfully for more than 25 years and is currently building the new MAX IV synchrotron facility at Brunnshög in the north-eastern part of Lund. More than 900 scientists from Sweden and the rest of the world are coming to the MAX IV Laboratory every year to use the x-rays produced by our electron accelerators. They do research in areas such as materials science, structural biology, chemistry, and nanotechnology. 140 people are currently employed at the MAX IV Laboratory. The MAX IV facility, the largest and most ambitious Swedish investment in research infrastructure, will be the brightest source of x-rays worldwide and will replace the existing national laboratory MAX-lab, which today consists of the storage rings MAX I, II and III.

Strategy 2013-2026[edit]

It is presently operating the MAX I-III facilities and building MAX IV, which will be inaugurated June 21st 2016.By then MAX IV shall have reached its full capacity and will be a crown jewel for natural science in Sweden and a cornerstone in the academic and industrial materials competence center in Brunnshög, Lund. MAX IV is built with the strong intellectual and financial support of 12 major Swedish Universities. It shall continue this collaboration and in addition attract international partners contributing both intellectually and to investment and operation. This will provide a better and more complete facility for less Swedish money.

In its development MAX IV shall keep a close watch of the international scene as exemplified by storage rings and free electron lasers, emerging communities and grand challenges.

Because of its revolutionary design MAX IV will provide high brightness X-ray beams of high transverse coherence and ultra-short duration. These will transform our understanding of matter and materials in many fields of natural science. Based on these world-leading strengths we suggest scientific fields for which beamlines shall be built up, the straw-man suit. The selection, prioritization and specification of beamlines serving these fields shall be done in full collaboration with the scientific community and the funders. The final suite of beamlines will serve all of natural science and cater to existing as well as emerging communities.

The existing MAX I-III storage rings continue to attract almost 1000 users/year producing ca. 240 publication and 35 PhD students every year. In the transition phase we prioritize MAX IV while safeguarding the operation at MAX I-III, which will be closed down in Dec. 2015.

The MAX IV-project consists of three subprojects: Building, accelerator, and beamlines. All are on schedule and in specifications. Since reporting a slight cost increase in summer 2012 the cost is reported to the funders on a quarterly basis and no further increase has occurred. The accelerator project entered the installation phase in May 2013 and LINAC installation is progressing according to plan. Commissioning will start in March 2014. The building is scheduled for final handover in October 2015. Beamlines are progressing according to plan. The inauguration of the entire facility is scheduled for June 21st 2016.

To cope with the very complex and expensive MAX IV project the laboratory has reformed its organization. It now has a matrix organization handling the MAX IV project complemented by a line organization taking care of the individual employees and organizing operation issues. This organization shall remain in place at least until completing the MAX IV project in 2016.

MAX IV Laboratory already has close to 50% international users. It has the potential and ambition to become a regional facility. For this formal partnership with countries in the Nordic/Baltic region shall be established. Partnership shall allow contributions to the operation cost and to future investment matching the scientific use of MAX IV. A first step towards this goal was taken in December 2012 with Estonia and Finland funding the FinEstBeaMS beamline at MAX IV. Internationalization must be done in a way protecting the large initial Swedish investment and resulting in a win-win situation for both Swedish and Nordic/Baltic users.

The future development of MAX IV is mostly steered through the beamline ramp-up plan. The suggested ramp-up allows exploiting the full capacity of the revolutionary MAX IV design and serving all areas of natural science in the Nordic/Baltic countries. It will require full involvement of the many scientific user communities and the international partners. For this we suggest a beamline selection process balancing scientific excellence and strategic aspects while maximizing transparency and accountability.

Sweden will build and operate beamline P21 at PETRA III. This is optimized for high energy X-rays and can ideally complement MAX IV. It is suggested to exploit synergies by coordinating the efforts.

From the beginning the MAX IV project anticipated the construction of an FEL. We summarize the scientific and economic benefits of co-locating the FEL with MAX IV and suggest a time line for the application and building process.

To maximize the synergies enabled by the proximity of MAX IV Laboratory, the European Spallation Source (ESS), the Lund University campus, and Science Village Scandinavia (SVS) we list priorities including for example a common physical (user reception) as well as virtual (user office) portal with ESS and suggest a timeline for their realization. Cohesion with Lund and other universities shall be maintained by joint appointments and by contributing to education.

Finally we estimate the full resources necessary to realize the vision of MAX IV as a world-leading regional facility serving all of natural science. Starting from the operations cost applied for (2014-2018) and assuming the beamline ramp-up we anticipate an almost constant investment need of 150MSEK/year (2017-2023) and an operations budget leveling out just above 500MSEK/year in 2026. Part of this cost shall be financed by the future Nordic/Baltic partners.