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

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, ultrafast phenomena that are key to a broad range of applications, from quantum materials to clean...

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 generations of performance-enhanced X-ray lasers.     

An upgrade to SLAC’s renowned Linac Coherent Light Source will allow it to deliver X-ray laser beams that are 10,000 times brighter with pulses that arrive up to a million times per second.

The results offer important implications for astrophysics and nuclear fusion research.

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