'Self-seeding' promises to speed discoveries, add new scientific capabilities

An international team led by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has proved how the world's most powerful X-ray laser can assist in cracking the structures of biomolecules, and in the processes helped to pioneer critical...

An international team of researchers has used SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) to discover never-before-seen behavior by electrons in complex materials with extraordinary properties.

A surprising atomic-scale wiggle underlies the way a special class of materials reacts to light, according to research that may lead to new devices for harvesting solar energy.

Scientists have found a way to distort the atomic arrangement and change the magnetic properties of an important class of electronic materials with ultra-short pulses of terahertz (mid-infrared) laser light without heating the material up.

After five night shifts of shooting pairs of X-ray pulses through soups of fine sand and gold, Aymeric Robert was tired but exhilarated. The first experiment with an instrument he helped bring into being – the X-ray Correlation Spectroscopy (XCS)...

The Department of Energy has approved a preliminary budget, schedule and design plans for the LCLS-II project, an expansion of SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source.

Two studies to be published February 3 in Nature demonstrate how the unique capabilities of the world’s first hard X-ray free-electron laser—the Linac Coherent Light Source, located at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory—could revolutionize the study of...