Superbend upgrade on the Advanced Light Source

The Advanced Light Source (ALS) is a third generation synchrotron light source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). There was an increasing demand for additional high brightness hard X-ray beamlines in the 7-40 keV range, so in August 2001, three 1.3 T normal conducting bending magnets were removed from the storage ring and replaced with 5 T superconducting magnets (Superbends). The radiation produced by these Superbends is an order of magnitude higher in photon brightness and flux at 12 keV, making them excellent sources of hard X-rays for protein crystallography and other hard X-ray applications. The Superbends did not compromise the performance of the facility in the VUV and soft X-ray regions of the spectrum. The Superbends will eventually feed 12 new beam lines, greatly enhancing the facility's capability and capacity in the hard X-ray region. The Superbend project is the biggest upgrade since the ALS storage ring was commissioned in 1993. In this paper we present an overview of the Superbend project, its challenges and the resulting impact on the ALS.