The X-ray laser movie shows what happens when light hits retinal, a key part of vision in animals and photosynthesis in microbes. The action takes place in a trillionth of an eye blink.

The researchers observed how an enzyme from drug-resistant tuberculosis bacteria damages an antibiotic molecule. The new technique provides a powerful tool to examine changes in biological molecules as they happen.

Water is more complicated than it seems. Now a study led by researchers at Stockholm University has probed the movements of its molecules on a timescale of millionths of a billionth of a second.

Experiments at SLAC heated water from room temperature to 100,000 degrees Celsius in less than a millionth of a millionth of a second, producing an exotic state of water that could shed light on Earth’s most important liquid.

By placing the tiniest strands of proteins on one-atom-thick graphene, scientists capture promising X-ray laser images of these elusive biomolecules that play a key role in neurodegenerative diseases.

The liquid sheets – less than 100 water molecules thick – will let researchers probe chemical, physical and biological processes, and even the nature of water itself, in a way they could never do before.

The new technology could allow next-generation instruments to explore the atomic world in ever more detail.

When it comes to making molecular movies, producing the world’s fastest X-ray pulses is only half the battle. A new technique reveals details about the timing and energy of pulses that are less than a millionth of a billionth of...

The DOE’s top official met with SLAC staff and toured the Linac Coherent Light Source X-ray laser, where a superconducting upgrade is underway.

Using SLAC’s X-ray laser, researchers have made detailed 3-D images of nanoscale biology, with future applications in the study of air pollution, combustion and catalytic processes.

The new technique will allow researchers to observe ultrafast chemical processes previously undetectable at the atomic scale.

Combining X-ray and electron data from two cutting-edge SLAC instruments, researchers make the first observation of the rapid atomic response of iron-platinum nanoparticles to light. The results could help develop ways to manipulate and control future magnetic data storage devices.