When will an African light source be built?

A good question reached us over social media: “Is there a timeline on building that synchrotron — for all the curious young scientists out there?” The short answer is yes. The African Light Source Foundation has a defined mandate and roadmap, and there are many ways for young scientists to join the journey.

The African Light Source Foundation (AfLS) is a legally constituted African NGO with a defined mandate and roadmap. That roadmap calls for a 10–15 year timeline toward the construction of an actual facility — and there are many opportunities for young scientists to travel that road with us.

BackgroundTwo decades in the making

The precursor conversation among many AfLS members goes back two decades, particularly rooted in the genesis of the African Laser Centre in 2002. Since then there have been many schools, workshops and conferences covering numerous aspects of light-source-based science, and African research infrastructures in general.

In 2015 the AfLS was formally created. We have been working with a wide range of stakeholders to build the capacity and local infrastructure that Africa needs to support an African light source. We are developing partnerships with the African Union and various African governments — especially those of Ghana, Rwanda, Egypt and South Africa — as well as with other African NGOs, programmes and institutions, light source facilities worldwide, and international scientific bodies.

The challengeWhy a timeline is only the beginning

Constructing a major facility is more complicated than simply conjecturing a timeline. Advanced light sources are exceedingly complex facilities, and building one takes decades of commitment — from the highest levels of government down to individual project scientists.

Planning, designing, building and commissioning a large infrastructure project must follow a well-managed process that starts with the production of a Conceptual Design Report (CDR). Conceptual designs provide a high-level overview of how the interacting sub-systems of a large project fit together, with the central aim of maximising the probability of a feasible final product. A CDR normally addresses all aspects — political, socio-economic, technical, scientific, industrial, financial, training and localisation among them — but not yet site selection, only site criteria.

The main idea behind the conceptual design is to maximise the probability of a feasible final product.

One purpose of a CDR is to secure political buy-in on a well-defined project. Another is to arrive at a plan that scientists, engineers and other end-users can use as a guide for detailed technical designs. Deciding exactly what to build is not trivial: advanced light source facilities support several different science and technology disciplines, and can deliver enormous capability through many different techniques.

So a key objective of our CDR is to lay down how big the accelerator will be, how many beamlines should be built, which techniques — among crystallography, imaging, microscopy, scattering and spectroscopy methods — will be prioritised, and what the reasonable bounds on affordability are.

The processHow we will produce the CDR

The AfLS begins its CDR process in earnest at its November 2020 virtual conference. We plan to produce the CDR in a two-step process that turns an open, crowd-sourced exchange of ideas into a single authoritative document.

Our CDR will scope out not only appropriate applications for Africa, but also new methodologies and entirely new techniques to implement. We anticipate that African MS, PhD, MD, DDS/DMD, MBA and LLB/LLM students will have the opportunity to develop whole thesis projects — in biophysics, chemistry, physics, engineering, palaeontology, food, medical, dental and materials sciences, as well as economics, law, business and policy studies — that could advance any one of the concepts important to an African light source.

We have arrived at an outline for our CDR (set out below), and we invite students and colleagues across Africa and beyond to make submissions on topics in their areas of expertise.

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The blueprintDetailed outline of the CDR

The outline spans four volumes, moving from the political and economic case, through the machine that produces the light, to the experimental capabilities it enables and finally the physical plant that houses it all.

Volume I — Political, Economic Development, and Management Concepts

1. The Science Case
2. The Economic Benefits Analysis
   • The “upstream model” of economic impact
   • The “downstream model” of economic impact
   • The Education Infrastructure and Human Capacity Development
3. Financial Considerations and Models
4. Light sources across the world — present situation
5. Suggested Roadmap Trajectories and Procedures
6. Roadmap — sections to include political, economic, educational, project planning and management, and local and regional infrastructure (e.g. cryo-EM, Compact Light Source)

Volume II — Machine Component Design Concepts

7. Electron Injector, LINAC
8. Booster
9. Storage Ring
10. Beamline / X-ray Optics
11. Cryo-Electron Microscopes (cryoEM)
12. X-ray Free Electron Lasers (XFEL)

Volume III — Experimental Capabilities and Beamline Concepts

13. Gamma-ray Spectroscopy and Crystallography
14. Macromolecular X-ray (MX) Crystallography
15. Materials and Chemical Crystallography
16. Micro-crystallography
17. Small / Wide-angle Scattering (SAXS/WAXS)
18. Powder X-ray Diffraction (PXD)
19. X-ray Spectroscopy (XAS/XES, EXAFS, XANES, XFS, Auger)
20. UV-vis, Electronic and Optical Spectroscopy
21. Infra-red Spectroscopy
22. Pump-probe, Multi-colour, and Time-resolved techniques
23. Tomography
24. Surface Microscopy and Imaging
25. Beamlines for Medical Use
26. Experimental Hutch Mechanical Systems
27. Detectors and Electronics
28. Data Handling, Algorithms, Software and Analysis
29. Theory Centres
30. Other Technical Capabilities for other Instruments, Fields of Study and Innovations

Volume IV — Building Design and Construction

31. Overall design concepts for the physical plant
    • Grounds, utilities and public works
    • Buildings, workspaces, and ergonomics
32. Support laboratories, feeder infrastructure
33. Computational infrastructure
34. Space for the Mega-science and Innovation Park
35. Site Selection Criteria and Procedures

Measuring the momentum

The growth curve behind the question

Open the nations & growth dashboard →Live figures from the OpenAlex corpus · powered by Apache Superset

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