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X-ray studies at SLAC facilities help scientists understand the fundamental workings of nature by probing matter in atomic detail.

atoms forming a tentative bond
Feature

Grad Students and Postdocs Get a Crash Course in Using X-ray Lasers

Archana Raja, a graduate student at Columbia University, explains her group’s poster presentation at SLAC’s Ultrafast X-ray Summer Seminar.
Feature

Exploding Soccer Ball-shaped Molecules Will Help Biological Studies

Image - Buckyballs, molecules composed of 60 carbon atoms, bust apart as they are struck by intense X-ray pulses at SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source. (Greg Stewart/SLAC)
News Release

SLAC Research Reveals Rapid DNA Changes that Act as Molecular Sunscreen

Illustration showing a thymine molecule, DNA helix and the sun.
News Release

Scientists at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have made the first structural observations of liquid water at temperatures down to minus...

Artist's concept - see caption
Feature

A sense of adventure and intellectual rigor led PULSE chemistry professor Kelly Gaffney to a successful career in science.

Image - PULSE chemistry professor Kelly Gaffney. (Brad Plummer/SLAC)
Feature

Even in their infancy, X-ray lasers such as SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source are notching a list of important discoveries, and a special issue...

Image - This illustration represents data derived from 175,000 X-ray diffraction patterns of Trapanosoma brucei cathepsin B, a protein relevant to African sleeping sickness, measured with X-ray pulses at SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source. (CFEL)
Feature

SLAC scientists have found a new way to produce bright pulses of light from accelerated electrons that could shrink "light source" technology used around...

A PhD student inspects the microwave undulator.
Feature

Researchers from Oxford, SIMES and Berkeley Lab say cadmium arsenide could yield practical devices with the same extraordinary electronic properties as 2-D graphene.

This illustration depicts fast-moving, massless electrons inside the material.
News Release

By finding surprising similarities in the way immune system defenders bind to disease-causing invaders, a new study may help scientists develop new treatments.

Conceptual art - see caption
Feature

In a recent experiment at SLAC's Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, scientists "tickled" atoms to explore the flow of heat and energy across materials at...

Photo - A view of a materials science experimental setup at SLAC's Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL). The circular instrument that frames this photo is part of a diffractometer that was used to align samples and a detector with X-rays.
Feature

Scientists at SLAC and Stanford show how high-temperature superconductivity emerges out of magnetism in an iron pnictide, a class of materials with great potential...

An illustration of electrons pairing up like dancers at a party
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Rolls-Royce researchers came to SLAC earlier this month as part of a team testing titanium and its alloys, such as those used in engine...

Photo - Despina Milathianaki, a staff scientist at SLAC's LCLS, holds a series of titanium alloy samples prepared for an experiment. The experiment was designed to study the laser-shocked state of the materials. (Fabricio Sousa/SLAC)