With their ability to penetrate matter and resolve individual atoms, X-rays and electrons are among scientists’ most useful tools for determining the structure and behavior of molecules and materials.
X-ray research on 80-million-year-old fossilized burrows, likely the work of tiny marine worms, is helping scientists understand how living organisms affected the chemistry of the sea floor.
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.
Researchers at SLAC have for the first time seen a spin current – an inherent magnetic property common to all electrons – as it travels across materials.
Recent experiments at SLAC's SSRL reveal that an organic semiconductor transports electrical charge more efficiently when combined with the wonder material graphene.
They used synthetic diamond crystals as mirrors to make X-ray pulses run laps inside a vacuum chamber, demonstrating a key process needed for future generations of performance-enhanced X-ray lasers.
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.
Chemical reactions often involve intermediate steps that are too fast and complex for us to see – even using our most advanced scientific instruments. Combining two X-ray spectroscopy techniques has now been shown to change that.