Operation

The accelerator is being operated by a crew of scientists and engineers as well as assistant student operators. Scientific work teams (also known as experiments) plan, construct and operate the experiments. The work teams are made up of regular scientists of the Institute and of other institutes and of students who are working on their diploma thesis or doctorate. A large portion of the planning and constructing work is being performed by students.



After start-up of the forth stage, the absolute time used for experiments during the past two years averaged 7070 hours per year and 81% of the yearly operating period. The electron beam was available for experiments for 5940 hours, i.e. 84% of the operating period. Due to technical difficulties, the accelerator was off 200 hours per year. The remaining operating period was used for operations planning and further development.



In May 2008, the accelerator development stage MAMI B exceeded the marc of 100,000 operating hours.