News archive

Browse the full collection of SLAC press releases and news features and stay up to date on the latest scientific advancements at the laboratory.

The long – but not too long – cavity would ping-pong X-ray pulses inside of a particle accelerator facility to help capture nature’s fastest movements.

This cartoon figure shows how the cavity-based X-ray free electron laser works in general. The electron beam (blue) travels through an undulator (brown), which causes the beam to release X-ray pulses. These pulses bounce around a set of four mirrors, helping them become coherent, before they continue down the accelerator to experimental halls.

The reanalysis considered new types of particle collisions and how dark matter particles interact with the Earth. 

clusters of galaxies collide showing separation of dark matter
News Feature · via Symmetry Magazine

SAGE Journey program ignites interest in STEM

Three SAGE alumni talk about their experiences with a program meant to broaden gender diversity in STEM.

SAGE Journey program collage of photos

Researchers demonstrate a way to remove the potent greenhouse gas from the exhaust of engines that burn natural gas.  

Illustration of bubbles of methane on surface of catalyst

Physicist and scientific leader Sarrao will become SLAC’s sixth director and succeeds X-ray scientist Chi-Chang Kao, who stepped down after 10 years in the position.

Headshot of John Sarrao

It irons out wrinkles in thin films of these novel superconductors so scientists can see their true nature for the first time. 

Colorized electron microscope images reveal defects in the atomic structure of a nickelate superconductor (right) compared to a defect-free structure (right)

The discovery will help art conservators develop new preservation techniques.

This image shows a portion of the 17th century painting, “Still Life with Flowers in a Glass Vase,” by Jan Davidszoon de Heem.

Batteries come in many shapes and sizes, but their materials can be hard to source. SLAC researchers are trying to build them with more abundant and ethical elements.

This is a graphic representation of a battery and the things that batteries can power

It takes a lot of meetings, travel logistics and even tracking down some parts to keep a large team collaborating on a project like the LSST Camera. That’s where administrator Regina Matter comes in.

A portrait of Regina Matter.

The first batch of data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument is now available for researchers to mine. Taken during the experiment’s “survey validation” phase, the data include distant galaxies and quasars as well as stars in our own Milky...

A telescope building sits atop a mountain in twilight.