Ultrafast science

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

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 light. The results could help develop ways to manipulate and control future magnetic data storage devices.

The first cryomodule has arrived at SLAC. Linked together and chilled to nearly absolute zero, 37 of these segments will accelerate electrons to almost the speed of light and power an upgrade to the nation’s only X-ray free-electron laser facility.

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 whole new level.

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 chemical reactions.

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 switching a material’s properties on and off for future electronics and other applications.

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 overestimating the sizes of the meteors that made them.

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 compressors.

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

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 movements in solids, chemical reactions and future electronics.

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.