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Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) RSS feed

The Linac Coherent Light Source at SLAC, the world’s first hard X-ray free-electron laser, takes X-ray snapshots of atoms and molecules at work, revealing fundamental processes in materials, technology and living things.

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Rooftop view of Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS)

Animation

In photosystem II, the water-splitting center cycles through four stable states, S0-S3. On a baseball field, S0 would be...

Photosystem II
News Feature

Siegfried Glenzer's team and collaborators from Tel Aviv University are working on a method that could make proton accelerators 100 times smaller without giving...

Glenzer-LaserProtonAcceleration
News Feature

Light-driven reactions are at the heart of human vision, photosynthesis and solar power generation. Seeing the very first step opens the door to observing...

Illustration showing electron orbitals ballooning in response to light
News Feature

It combines human knowledge and expertise with the speed and efficiency of “smart” computer algorithms.

Accelerator Control Room
News Feature

New research shows that when a bunch of electrons zooms through the middle of a ring-shaped laser beam, the bunch can wind up with...

donut laser
News Feature

The lab is responding to the coronavirus crisis by imaging disease-related biomolecules, developing standards for reliable coronavirus testing and enabling other essential research.

SARS-CoV-2
News Feature

Researchers investigate how much damage spreads through molecules struck by a pulse from LCLS.

Two color mode
News Feature

This new technology could enable future insights into chemical and biological processes that occur in solution, such as vision, catalysis and photosynthesis.

UED liquid
News Feature

An LCLS imaging technique reveals how a mosquito-borne bacterium deploys a toxin to kill mosquito larvae. Scientists hope to harness it to fight disease.

A photograph of mosquito larvae.
News Feature

Hitting molecules with two photons of light at once set off unexpected processes that were captured in detail with SLAC’s X-ray laser. Scientists say...

Closeup image of molecular movie frames
News Feature

Researchers have squeezed a high-energy electron beam into tight bundles using terahertz radiation, a promising advance in watching the ultrafast world of atoms unfold.

SLAC’s Emma Snively and Mohamed Othman at the lab’s high-speed “electron camera."
News Brief

These inexpensive photosensitizers could make solar power and chemical manufacturing more efficient. Experiments at SLAC offer insight into how they work.

Illustration of carbene reaction pathways