First commissioning of SPring-8

SPring-8 is the third generation synchrotron radiation source in soft and hard X-ray region and consists of an injector linac of 1 GeV, a booster synchrotron of 8 GeV and a storage ring with a natural emittance of 5.5 nmrad. The storage ring can accommodate 61 beamlines in total and 26 of them are under construction. Construction started in 1991 and inauguration is scheduled in October, 1997. We started commissioning of the injector linac on August 1, 1996, and succeeded to get 1 GeV electron beam a week later. The synchrotron was commissioned in December and 8 GeV electron beam was successfully extracted on January 27, 1997. By the end of February 1997, installation and precise alignment of the storage ring was completed and four insertion devices (in-vacuum undulators) were installed in the storage ring. On March 14 we started commissioning of the storage ring and immediately after we observed the first turn in the ring. After fine adjustment of the parameters we succeeded to store a 0.05 mA beam in the storage ring on March 25. Next day the first synchrotron radiations from a bending magnet was clearly observed at the front end of the beamline. On April 17 we succeeded to increase the stored current to 20 mA, which is a target value of the stored current in the first phase of commissioning. The first radiations from an undulator was observed on April 23.