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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)

Video

LCLS-II’s Eric Fauve explains how the team cools the accelerator to 2 kelvins. 

Cooling SLAC's linear accelerator to 2 kelvins
Video
News Feature

En route to record-breaking X-rays, SLAC’s Cryogenic team built a helium-refrigeration plant that lowers the LCLS-II accelerator to superconducting temperatures.

Images of frost and a thermometer superimposed over an aerial view of an accelerator building.
Illustration
A cross section of the LCLS-II accelerator showing where liquid and gaseous helium flow in and out of the system.
Cross section showing pipes and liquid and gas helium
Illustration
Images of frost and a thermometer superimposed over an aerial view of an accelerator building.
News Feature

An extension of the Stanford Research Computing Facility will host several data centers to handle the unprecedented data streams that will be produced by...

SRCF-II
News Feature

The Small Business Innovation Research Program brings government and private industry together to develop next-generation X-ray optics for LCLS-II.

A narrow two-mile long building stretches through trees and foothills.
SLAC Science Explained

Molecular movie-making is both an art and a science; the results let us watch how nature works on the smallest scales.

Molecular movie filmstrip.
News Feature

After decades of experience in the DOE lab system and as director of a leading synchrotron light source, he’s back to where he earned...

Stephen Streiffer
News Feature

Scientists discover superconductivity and charge density waves are intrinsically interconnected at the nanoscopic level, a new understanding that could help lead to the next...

A beam of light lands on a series of squiggly lines. Where the beam lands, the lines are straight.
Press Release

The facility, LCLS-II, will soon sharpen our view of how nature works on ultrasmall, ultrafast scales, impacting everything from quantum devices to clean energy.

LCLS-II cooldown
Animation
Now that the cavities have been cooled, the next step is to pump them with more than a megawatt of...
Cryomodule cavity animation
Illustration

A half-mile-long stretch of tunnel in Menlo Park, California is now colder than most of the universe.

LCLS-II cooldown