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Ultrafast science RSS feed

SLAC is the world’s leading center for developing “ultrafast” X-ray, laser and electron beams that allow us to see atoms and molecules moving in just millionths of a billionth of a second. We can even create stop-action movies of these tiny events.

DOE explains...Ultrafast science

This illustration shows how the first experiment at SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source X-ray laser stripped away electrons from neon atoms. (SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)

News Feature

Using SLAC’s X-ray laser, researchers have made detailed 3-D images of nanoscale biology, with future applications in the study of air pollution, combustion and...

Colorful image formed from multiple X-ray diffraction patterns.
News Feature

The new technique will allow researchers to observe ultrafast chemical processes previously undetectable at the atomic scale.

Yuantao Ding and Marc Guetg in the SLAC Control Room
News Feature

Combining X-ray and electron data from two cutting-edge SLAC instruments, researchers make the first observation of the rapid atomic response of iron-platinum nanoparticles to...

ultrafast electron diffraction on iron-platinum
Press Release

The first cryomodule has arrived at SLAC. Linked together and chilled to nearly absolute zero, 37 of these segments will accelerate electrons to almost...

A worker unveiling a cryomodule on a truck.
News Feature

Innovations at SLAC, including the world’s shortest X-ray flashes, ultra-high-speed pulse trains and smart computer controls, promise to take ultrafast X-ray science to a...

Accelerators and Machine Learning
News Feature

Biochemical 'action shots' with SLAC’s X-ray laser could help scientists develop synthetic enzymes for medicine and answer fundamental questions about how enzymes change during...

SLAC associate staff scientist Thomas Joseph Lane at the Coherent X-Ray Imaging instrument
News Feature

In experiments with the lab’s ultrafast "electron camera," laser light hitting a material is almost completely converted into nuclear vibrations, which are key to...

UED Molybdenum Diselenide
News Feature

Research with SLAC’s X-ray laser simulates what happens when a meteor hits Earth’s crust. The results suggest that scientists studying impact sites have been...

News Feature

The cryogenic plant responsible for keeping LCLS-II’s superconducting linear accelerator at just a few degrees above absolute zero recently received its first warm helium...

News Feature

In October, SLAC installed the first of LCLS-II’s cryogenic “feed caps” and “end caps.”

News Feature

This novel method could shrink the equipment needed to make laser pulses billionths of a billionth of a second long for studying ultra-speedy electron...

In this illustration, a near-infrared laser beam hits a piece of ordinary glass and triggers a process called high harmonic generation
News Feature

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...

Aequorea victoria, a bioluminescent jellyfish