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 an annual shutdown between Christmas and New Year's Eve for all instruments and 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)