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Chi-Chang Kao, a noted X-ray scientist and director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, recently announced that he will step down and return to research. We asked him to look back on his decade as director...

A man in a blue shirt and gray suit poses in front of a large scientific apparatus.

Researchers used cryo-EM (left) to discover how a chamber in human cells (right) directs protein folding.

A pom-pom like object with curly tangles in purple and blue shades and yellow tangles at center, reminiscent of a zinnia blossom.

A polymer-based electrolyte makes for batteries that keep working – and don’t catch fire – when heated to over 140 degrees F.

A white disc of battery material catches fire.

Once built, the system could produce fast X-ray pulses ten times more powerful than ever before.

illustration of an electron beam traveling through a niobium cavity – a key component of SLAC’s future LCLS-II X-ray laser.

To invent a new tool for studying how chemicals react at interfaces, researchers shoot tiny jets of oil and water at each other and illuminate them.

Rainbow colors in a sheet of layered liquids

LSST Camera images provide the inspiration for artist Lennart Lahuis’s “Astromelancholia.”

A machine learning algorithm automatically extracts information to speed up – and extend – the study of materials with X-ray pulse pairs.

A pattern of red and yellow dots surrounded by a ring of blue dots on a black background.

Two GEM Fellows reflect on their summer internships at SLAC and share their thoughts on representation and mentorship.

For decades, materials scientists have focused on materials that are relatively balanced and unchanging – but not Yijing Huang, a postdoctoral scholar at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. With the aid of SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source...

Chi-Chang Kao has decided to return to research after serving 10 years as director of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. He will continue in the lab director role until a replacement is found.

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SLAC science explained

Vera C. Rubin Observatory LSST

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

SSRL 50th anniversary celebration

Lab Director Chi-Chang Kao reflects on the past decade as SLAC celebrates 60th anniversary

SLAC/Stanford researchers discover how a nano-chamber in the cell directs protein folding

Flameproofing lithium-ion batteries with salt

Researchers adapt a Nobel Prize-winning method to design new, ultra-powerful X-ray systems

Shining a new light on oil-slick rainbows and other thin-layer physics

Finding art in astrophysics technology

Artificial intelligence deciphers detector "clouds" to accelerate materials research

GEM Fellowship aims to increase representation in STEM

Yijing Huang wins 2022 LCLS Young Investigator Award for work on controlling unique structures of semiconductors

Chi-Chang Kao to step down as SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory director