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Energy sciences RSS feed

One of the most urgent challenges of our time is discovering how to generate the energy and products we need sustainably, without compromising the well-being of future generations by depleting limited resources or accelerating climate change. SLAC pursues this goal on many levels.

Studies of atomic-level processes

News Feature

SLAC and Stanford scientists discovered that a single layer of tiny diamonds increases an electron gun’s emission 13,000 fold. Potential applications include electron microscopes...

Nick Melosh holds a model of a diamondoid
News Feature

Researchers at SLAC have found a simple new way to study very delicate biological samples – like proteins at work in photosynthesis and components...

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SLAC, Stanford scientists discover that bombarding and stretching a catalyst opens holes on its surface and makes it much more reactive. Potential applications include...

Illustration of a catalyst being bombarded with argon atoms to create holes where chemical reactions can take place.
Press Release

A team led by SLAC scientists combined powerful magnetic pulses with some of the brightest X-rays on the planet to discover a surprising 3-D...

Image - In this artistic rendering, a magnetic pulse (right) and X-ray laser light (left) converge on a superconductor material to study the behavior of its electrons. (SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)
News Feature

A process developed by Stanford and SLAC scientists has potential for scaling up to manufacture clear, flexible electrodes for solar cells, displays and other...

Stanford and SLAC postdoctoral researcher Sean Andrews with solution shearing instrument
Press Release

Understanding Motions of Thin Layers May Help Design Solar Cells, Electronics and Catalysts of the Future

a three-atom-thick layer of a promising material as it wrinkles in response to a laser pulse
News Feature

In a first-of-its-kind experiment, scientists got a textbook-worthy result that may change the way matter is probed at X-ray free-electron lasers.

The Linac Coherent Light Source X-ray laser at SLAC
News Feature

A researcher interviewed SLAC and Stanford administrators, scientists and Nobel laureates and sifted through archival materials to better understand the drivers for change in...

Image - Olof Hallonsten
News Feature

In separate studies, researchers at Stanford and the University of Wisconsin-Madison report advances on chemical reactions essential to fuel-cell technology.

News Feature

Results from SIMES theorists pave the way for experiments that create and control new forms of matter with light.

Depiction of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb pattern to form graphene
News Feature

SLAC study of tiny nanocrystals provides new insight on the design and function of nanomaterials

Image - In this illustration, intense X-rays produced at SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source strike nanowires to study an ultrafast "breathing" response in the crystals induced quadrillionths of a second earlier by pulses of optical laser light.
News Feature

Two new research projects support the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences in the study of exotic new materials that could enable future...