LCLS Coherent X-ray Imaging (CXI)

A new method could be used to look at chemical reactions that other techniques can’t catch, for instance in catalysis, photovoltaics, peptide and combustion research.

In the decade since LCLS produced its first light, it has pushed boundaries in countless areas of discovery.

New research will help in the quest to design low-cost drugs that can tackle postpartum bleeding and other conditions without severe side effects.

The X-ray laser movie shows what happens when light hits retinal, a key part of vision in animals and photosynthesis in microbes. The action takes place in a trillionth of an eye blink.

The researchers observed how an enzyme from drug-resistant tuberculosis bacteria damages an antibiotic molecule. The new technique provides a powerful tool to examine changes in biological molecules as they happen.

Experiments at SLAC heated water from room temperature to 100,000 degrees Celsius in less than a millionth of a millionth of a second, producing an exotic state of water that could shed light on Earth’s most important liquid.

With SLAC’s X-ray laser, a research team captured ultrafast changes in fluorescent proteins between “dark” and “light” states. The insights allowed the scientists to design improved markers for biological imaging.

Over the next five years they’ll work on getting significantly more information about how catalysts work and improving biological imaging methods.

When scientists at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory focused the full intensity of the world’s most powerful X-ray l

X-ray studies have produced surprising insights into the workings of a hormone receptor associated with blood pressure regulation that could be a target for new medicines related to cardiovascular conditions, neuropathic pain and tissue growth.

Scientists used SLAC's LCLS X-ray laser to make the first snapshots of a chemical interaction between two biomolecules. It changes the shape of millions of molecular switches almost instantaneously, like synchronized swimmers performing the same move.

The team determined the 3-D structure of a biomolecule by tagging it with selenium atoms and taking hundreds of thousands of images.