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SLAC builds and uses various kinds of lasers to do scientific research. 

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PULSE graduate student Jian Chen in a laser lab at SLAC.

Press Release

Scientists used the powerful X-ray laser at the U.S. Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to create movies detailing trillionths-of-a-second changes in the...

thin samples of copper, iron and titanium
News Feature

Scientists at SLAC have found a new method to create coherent beams of twisted light – light that spirals around a central axis as...

Accelerator physicist Erik Hemsing next to the NLCTA,...
News Feature

Dao Xiang, a SLAC accelerator physicist, has received an international award for his work on a technique for tuning an electron beam with a...

Dao Xiang. (Matt Beardsley/SLAC)
News Feature

Crews will install a powerful new instrument, start assembling a new "self-seeding" system that will focus soft X-ray laser pulses into a bright, narrow...

Photo - Component for a high-power laser upgrade at t...
News Feature

In a new state-of-the-art lab at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, components of ribosomes – tiny biological machines that make new proteins and play a...

Photo - Hasan Demirci, a visiting investigator from B...
News Feature

A high-energy SLAC laser that creates shock waves and superhot plasmas needs to cool for about 10 minutes between shots. In the meantime, the...

Photo - This equipment is used to quickly move a mirror in or out of the path of X-rays at LCLS to switch them to different experiments. (Matt Beardsley)
Press Release

Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have clocked the fastest-possible electrical switching in magnetite, a naturally magnetic mineral...

Artists concept shows laser hitting atomic structure and breaking it
News Feature

It all comes down to one tiny spot on a diamond-cut, highly pure copper plate.

Photo - SLAC's Sasha Gilevich, middle, works on laser...
News Feature

A tool developed half a century ago for sorting subatomic particles has been redesigned to measure X-ray laser pulses at SLAC's Linac Coherent Light...

Patrick Krejcik and Yuantao Ding, a staff scientist and lead researcher on the XTCAV project
News Feature

It's no surprise that the data systems for SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source X-ray laser have drawn heavily on the expertise of the particle...

Photo - Amedeo Perazzo.
News Feature

Last year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry – shared by Stanford School of Medicine Professor Brian Kobilka and Robert Lefkowitz of Duke University – recognized...

Image: Researchers Dingjie Wang and Garret Nelson fro...
Press Release

The ultrafast, ultrabright X-ray pulses of the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) have enabled unprecedented views of a catalyst in action, an important step...

Artist rendition: molecules react with the surface of a catalyst in real time