Environmental science

New research reveals how a molecule absorbs light and gains a proton while its watery environment reorganizes in response. 

SLAC’s SSRL helps pin down key players in the microbial production of methylmercury, a poison that can accumulate in fish.

An associate scientist at SSRL, Richardson studies plant growth to find ways to enhance nutrient uptake in plants, especially in challenging conditions – such as higher temperatures, drought, and intense precipitation events – brought about by climate change.

The method could lead to the development of new materials with tailored properties, with potential applications in fields such as climate change, quantum computing and drug design.

With up to a million X-ray flashes per second, 8,000 times more than its predecessor, it transforms the ability of scientists to explore atomic-scale, ultrafast phenomena that are key to a broad range of applications, from quantum materials to clean...

In our rapidly changing world, plants must adapt to new environments or die. Ritimukta Sarangi discusses how researchers and users at SSRL are tackling plant resilience from molecular to ecosystem scales.

X-ray laser studies help researchers identify early steps in the freezing process to better understand how clouds make ice and their effect on climate.

Leora Dresselhaus-Marais, Claudio Emma,  Bernhard Mistlberger and Johanna Nelson Weker will pursue cutting-edge research into decarbonizing steel production, theoretical physics, generating more intense particle beams, and improving X-ray microscopes.

After decades of effort, scientists have finally seen the process by which nature creates the oxygen we breathe using SLAC’s X-ray laser.