SLAC topics

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

Scientists developed a new method to unlock the secrets of RNA. The implications are wide-reaching, from better understanding diseases to designing new therapeutics. 

CXI hutch
News Feature

A groundbreaking study shows defects spreading through diamond faster than the speed of sound 

Shocking a diamond with a high-power laser produced defects that propagated faster than the speed of sound.
News Brief

Scientists developed a groundbreaking technology that allows them to see sound waves and microscopic defects inside crystals, promising insights that connect ultrafast atomic motion...

CXI hutch
Press Release

With up to a million X-ray flashes per second, 8,000 times more than its predecessor, it transforms the ability of scientists to explore atomic-scale...

LCLS-II first light
News Feature

X-ray laser studies help researchers identify early steps in the freezing process to better understand how clouds make ice and their effect on climate.

supercooled water droplets
News Feature

They used synthetic diamond crystals as mirrors to make X-ray pulses run laps inside a vacuum chamber, demonstrating a key process needed for future...

Two scientists in a control room full of computer monitors that allow them to adjust diamond mirrors in their CBXFEL experiment
News Feature

Bringing ultrafast physics to structural biology has revealed the coordinated dance of molecules in unprecedented clarity, which could aid in the design of new...

molecular control
News Feature

The results should further our understanding of similar reactions with vital roles in chemistry, such as the production of vitamin D in our bodies.

UED transition state
News Feature

Chemical reactions often involve intermediate steps that are too fast and complex for us to see  – even using our most advanced scientific instruments...

This is a graphic representation of an intermediate chemical reaction. The image shows the chemical reaction, a laser, X-rays and a detector system.
Press Release

After decades of effort, scientists have finally seen the process by which nature creates the oxygen we breathe using SLAC’s X-ray laser.

Photosystem II
News Feature

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

Yijing Huang at Stanford University
Press Release

Studying a material that even more closely resembles the composition of ice giants, researchers found that oxygen boosts the formation of diamond rain.

Diamond rain formation