Greg Stewart

The ultrafast, ultrabright X-ray pulses of the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) have enabled unprecedented views of a catalyst in action, an important step in the effort to develop cleaner and more efficient energy sources.

Ultra-bright X-ray laser pulses can be used to strip electrons away from atoms, creating ions with strong charges.

This animation shows how krypton (red) is removed from xenon gas (blue) by flowing the combined gases through a column of charcoal (black specks). Both elements stick to the charcoal, but krypton is not as strongly attached and gets swept...

A cross section of the LCLS-II accelerator showing where liquid and gaseous helium flow in and out of the system.

A schematic of the LCLS-II cryoplant.

Now that the cavities have been cooled, the next step is to pump them with more than a megawatt of microwave power to accelerate the electron beam from the new source. Electrons passing through the cavities will draw energy from...