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Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) RSS feed

The Linac Coherent Light Source at SLAC, the world’s first hard X-ray free-electron laser, takes X-ray snapshots of atoms and molecules at work, revealing fundamental processes in materials, technology and living things.

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Rooftop view of Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS)
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Battery research

The new SLAC-Stanford Battery Center aims to bridge the gaps between discovering, manufacturing and deploying innovative energy storage solutions. 

April 11, 2023
Illustration showing a battery researcher at left, a battery at center and a grid of battery applications at right.
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Researchers adapt a Nobel Prize-winning method to design new, ultra-powerful X-ray systems

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

December 5, 2022  ·  3 min read
illustration of an electron beam traveling through a niobium cavity – a key component of SLAC’s future LCLS-II X-ray laser.
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Shining a new light on oil-slick rainbows and other thin-layer physics

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

November 30, 2022  ·  4 min read
Rainbow colors in a sheet of layered liquids
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The creation of the world's brightest X-ray laser

After more than a decade, LCLS was upgraded to generate even more powerful X-ray laser beams. With the LCLS-II upgrade, LCLS is around 10,000...
November 8, 2022
The creation of the world's brightest X-ray
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Yijing Huang wins 2022 LCLS Young Investigator Award for work on controlling unique structures of semiconductors

The award celebrates Huang’s achievements studying atom-scale physics with fast X-ray pulses.

October 31, 2022  ·  2 min read
Yijing Huang at Stanford University
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CXI | X-ray Laser Gets First Real-time Snapshots of a Chemical Flipping a Biological Switch

In a landmark experiment at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, scientists used an X-ray laser to capture the first snapshots of a chemical interaction between...
October 30, 2022  ·  00:02:12  runtime
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MEC silicon

Illustration of how a single crystal sample of silicon deforms during shock compression on nanosecond timescales.

October 13, 2022
MEC silicon
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Researchers resolve decades-long debate about shock-compressed silicon with unprecedented detail

They saw how the material finds a path to contorting and flexing to avoid being irreversibly crushed.

October 13, 2022  ·  5 min read
MEC silicon
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Electron transfer in a molecular complex

When light drives electron transfer in a molecular complex, the surrounding solvent molecules also rapidly move.
October 11, 2022
When light drives electron transfer in a molecular complex, the surrounding solvent molecules also rapidly move.
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XLEAP illustration

Scientists use a series of magnets to transform an electron bunch into a narrow current spike which then produces a very intense attosecond X-ray...

September 27, 2022
XLEAP illustration
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SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) Near Experimental Hall

SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) Near Experimental Hall building at sunrise with Stanford University Hoover Tower in the background.

September 25, 2022
SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) Near Experimental Hall building at sunrise with Stanford University Hoover Tower in the background.
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Chemical reaction

The ultrafast, ultrabright X-ray pulses of the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) have enabled unprecedented views of a catalyst in action, an important step...

September 23, 2022
Nilsson science cover