Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS)

Researchers at SLAC are developing experimental techniques to evaluate new candidates for inertial fusion energy targets. 

The SLAC team is developing digital twins – powered by AI and high-performance computing – to help quickly shape high-quality particle beams for the lab’s X-ray and ultrafast facilities.

Laser-driven break up of "buckyballs" is recorded in real-time by X-ray imaging at LCLS. 

A new machine learning algorithm rapidly reconstructs 3D images from X-ray data. 

SLAC and Stanford partner with Argonne National Laboratory and others toward a quantum-interconnected world.

After a major upgrade, SLAC's X-ray free-electron laser is 10,000 times brighter and thousands of times faster. Now, researchers are using LCLS to observe electrons in real time as they move across molecules.

21-26 September 2025 at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

His visit highlighted the breadth of our world-class research and the people and collaborations that make it possible. A key theme of the day: how SLAC and the National Labs are advancing AI to accelerate discovery.

Researchers used LCLS to capture the ultrafast motion of electrons inside molecules – at scales never before possible. 

They used SLAC’s ultrafast X-ray laser to follow the impact of a single electron moving within a molecule during an entire chemical reaction.

With a suite of reimagined instruments, researchers take up scientific inquiries that were out of reach just one year ago.