Operating Cycles and Beam Time Allocation

Operating cycles

Experiments at the three high-energy electrostatic accelerators (2 MV Van-de-Graaff, 3 MV Tandetron and 6 MV Tandetron) are running 24h per day (3 shifts) - from Monday morning to Saturday morning. Experiments at other instruments/accelerators are usually running 8h per day (one shift) from Monday to Friday.

On a regular basis there are maintenance shutdowns, which differ from instrument to instrument. Additionally, there is a yearly shutdown between Christmas and New Year's Eve for all instruments/accelerators.

Beam time allocation

Beam time at the IBC is allocated on a shift basis that might be broken down into several packages, especially for longer experiment series.

For hands-off beam times, i.e. users are sending samples to the IBC and IBC scientists are conducting the experiments, allocation is done on a (USP ranking-weighted) first in - first out waiting queue basis

For hands-on beam times, i.e. users are conducting or attending experiments, allocation at the high-energy accelerators is done within the following shift system:

• early shift (06:00-14:00)
• late shift (14:00-22:00)
• night shift (22:00-06:00)