The first step in many light-driven chemical reactions, like the ones that power photosynthesis and human vision, is a shift in the arrangement of a molecule’s electrons as they absorb the light’s energy. Now scientists have directly observed this first step.
SLAC researchers have developed a new tool, using machine learning, that may make part of the accelerator tuning process five times faster compared to previous methods.
The lab is responding to the coronavirus crisis by imaging disease-related biomolecules, developing standards for reliable coronavirus testing and enabling other essential research.
Just like we orbit the sun and the moon orbits us, the Milky Way has satellite galaxies with their own satellites. Drawing from data on those galactic neighbors, a new model suggests the Milky Way should have an additional 100 or so very faint satellite galaxies awaiting discovery.
Turning a brittle oxide into a flexible membrane and stretching it on a tiny apparatus flipped it from a conducting to an insulating state and changed its magnetic properties. The technique can be used to study and design a broad range of materials for use in things like sensors and detectors.
Researchers were looking into a protein that tuberculosis bacteria need to thrive, but when they finally solved its structure, they discovered a gigantic cavity that could help shuttle a variety of molecules into TB bacteria.
Researchers observed atomic nuclei moving over distances of less than an angstrom in less than a trillionth of a second -- a level of resolution that can only be achieved with an X-ray free-electron laser.
Researchers from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have made a promising new advance for the lab’s high-speed “electron camera” that could allow them to “film” tiny, ultrafast motions of protons and electrons in chemical reactions that have never been seen before.
A cheap technique could detect neutrinos in polar ice, eventually allowing researchers to expand the energy reach of IceCube without breaking the bank.
A team of scientists from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University has gained insight into how electric fields affect the way energy from light drives molecular motion and transformation in a protein commonly used in biological imaging.
Cryogenic electron microscopy can in principle make out individual atoms in a molecule, but distinguishing the crisp from the blurry parts of an image can be a challenge. A new mathematical method may help.
Photosensitizers are molecules that absorb sunlight and pass that energy along to generate electricity or drive chemical reactions. A SLAC study looked at how an inexpensive photosensitizer, iron carbene, stores energy from sunlight, and why it’s not better at its job.
Imagine being able to manufacture complex devices whenever you want and wherever you are. It would create unforeseen possibilities even in the most remote locations, such as building spare parts or new components on board a spacecraft. 3D printing, or additive manufacturing, could be a way of doing just that.
SLAC scientist Siqi Li works on new methods to allow researchers using LCLS, our X-ray laser, to observe the motion of electrons or do high-resolution imaging. When she’s not working to create more efficient and advanced X-ray lasers, Li likes to unwind with yoga.
It represents an entirely new type of ground state for transition metal oxides, and opens new directions for experiments and theoretical studies of how superconductivity arises and how it can be optimized in this system and possibly in other compounds.
Astrophysicists have come a step closer to understanding the origin of a faint glow of gamma rays covering the night sky. They found that this light is brighter in regions that contain a lot of matter and dimmer where matter is sparser – a correlation that could help them narrow down the properties of exotic astrophysical objects and invisible dark matter.
The LSST camera is the biggest digital camera ever constructed for ground-based astronomy. Within the year, Hannah and her teammates will finish assembling and testing the camera and it will be shipped to its home at the summit of Cerro Pachón in Chile.
Many microbes wear beautifully patterned crystalline shells. Now scientists have zoomed in on the very first step in microbial shell-building: nucleation, where squiggly proteins crystallize into sturdy building blocks. The results help explain how the shells assemble themselves so quickly.
Experiments at SLAC and Stanford probe the normal state more accurately than ever before and discover an abrupt shift in the behavior of electrons in which they suddenly give up their individuality and behave like an electron soup.
Researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have invented a way to observe the movements of electrons with powerful X-ray laser bursts just 280 attoseconds, or billionths of a billionth of a second, long.
SLAC theorists have observed strange metallicity in a well-known model for simulating and describing the behavior of materials with strongly correlated electrons, which join forces to produce unexpected phenomena rather than acting independently.
Daniel Gruen's work on how massive objects bend light from distant galaxies is aimed at unraveling some of the greatest mysteries of modern physics: What is dark matter? What is dark energy, and how is it accelerating the expansion of the universe?
A new instrument mounted on a telescope in Arizona aimed its robotic array of 5,000 fiber-optic “eyes” at the night sky on Oct. 22 to capture the first images showing its unique view of galaxy light.
SLAC and Stanford researchers have shown for the first time that a cheap catalyst can split water and generate hydrogen gas for hours on end in the harsh environment of a commercial electrolyzer – a step toward large-scale hydrogen production for fuel, fertilizer and industry.
When he was growing up, Jonathan LeyVa thought he’d follow his passion for race cars and pick a profession in automotive engineering. Instead he’s working on what will become one of the world’s most sensitive searches for dark matter, the invisible substance that accounts for more than 85 percent of the mass of the universe.
SLAC and Stanford scientists prove a well-known model of material behavior applies to high-temperature superconductors, giving them a new tool for understanding how these weird materials conduct electricity with no loss.
A hypothetical nuclear process known as neutrinoless double beta decay ought to be among the least likely events in the universe. Now the international EXO-200 collaboration, which includes researchers from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, has determined just how unlikely it is: In a given volume of a certain xenon isotope, it would take more than 35 trillion trillion years for half of its nuclei to decay through this process – an eternity compared to the age of the universe, which is “only” 13 billion years old.
Researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have received two DOE awards to explore how quantum information can be passed from one quantum device to another. The goal: develop ways to link quantum devices into quantum computing networks that are much more powerful than today’s technology and into innovative photon detectors that could open up new areas of research, such as novel searches for dark matter.
Four SUNCAT scientists describe recent research results related to the quest to capture CO2 from the smokestacks of factories and power plants and use renewable energy to turn it into industrial feedstocks and fuels.
Scientists at SLAC and Stanford have made the first nickel oxide material that shows clear signs of superconductivity - the ability to transmit electrical current with no loss. The first in a potential new family of unconventional superconductors, its similarity to the cuprates raises hopes that it can be made to superconduct at relatively high temperatures.
In independent studies, two research teams report important advances in understanding how charge stripes might interact with superconductivity. Both studies were carried out with X-rays at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
An international team of researchers, including scientists from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, has demonstrated a potentially much brighter electron source based on plasma that could be used in more compact, more powerful particle accelerators.
Arianna Gleason and Diana Gamzina, staff scientists at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, will receive prestigious Early Career Research Program awards for studies in fusion energy and the development of next-generation radiofrequency (RF) technology.
Hans-Georg Steinrück, a versatile scientist who has made important contributions to research involving lithium-ion batteries, organic transistors, and catalysis, has been chosen to receive the 2019 William E. and Diane M. Spicer Young Investigator Award.
Maria Elena Monzani spends most of her work day preparing scientists around the globe to analyze data from a future experiment designed to detect signals of elusive dark matter particles – the stuff you don’t see when you look into the night sky, although it makes up about 85% of all matter in the universe.
A new study describes how a team of researchers watched a molecule vibrate after they excited it with ultraviolet light.
A team led by scientists from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University has narrowed down how strongly dark matter particles might interact with normal matter. Based on the number and distribution of small satellite galaxies seen orbiting our Milky Way, the team found this interaction to be at least a thousand times weaker than the strongest interaction allowed by previous astrophysical analyses.
Over the past few years, the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has developed a new tool to visualize physical and chemical processes with outstanding clarity: an ultra-high-speed “electron camera” capable of tracking atomic motions in a broad range of materials in real time. Starting this week, the lab has made this tool available to researchers worldwide.
Scientists from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have taken the first images of carbon dioxide molecules within a molecular cage ¬¬– part of a highly porous nanoparticle known as a MOF, or metal-organic framework, with great potential for separating and storing gases and liquids.
Scientists have made the first observations of proteins assembling themselves into crystals, one molecule at a time, in a living cell. The method they used to watch this happen – an extremely high-res form of molecular moviemaking – could shed light on other important biological processes and help develop nanoscale technologies inspired by nature.
Over the past few months, the LZ team at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, which is part of the international LZ collaboration of 250 scientists from 37 institutions, has carefully woven the grids from 2 miles of thin stainless steel wire, and yesterday they sent the last one on its way to the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in South Dakota, where the LZ detector is being assembled.
Scientists at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory are building the world’s largest digital camera for astronomy and astrophysics – a minivan-sized 3,200-megapixel ‘eye’ of the future Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) that will enable unprecedented views of the universe starting in the fall of 2022 and provide new insights into dark energy and other cosmic mysteries. In the meantime, the lab has completed its work on a miniature version that will soon be used for testing the telescope and taking LSST’s first images of the night sky.
Physicist Tor Raubenheimer explores the world by climbing rocks and designing particle accelerators.
Experiments at SLAC’s X-ray laser reveal in atomic detail how two distinct liquid phases in these materials enable fast switching between glassy and crystalline states that represent 0s and 1s in memory devices.
A multi-institute team of researchers has developed the most comprehensive view yet of how repeated charging damages lithium-ion battery electrodes. Manufacturers could potentially use this information to design more reliable and longer-lasting batteries for smartphones and cars, the researchers say.
Crews at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have powered up a new electron gun, a key component of the lab’s upgrade of its Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray laser, and last night it fired its first electrons.
X-ray work can be grueling. As a duty operator at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL), Sarah Edwards works 12-hour shifts starting at either 6 a.m. or 6 p.m.
SLAC’s ‘electron camera’ films rapidly melting tungsten and reveals atomic-level material behavior that could impact the design of future reactors.
A new idea for smashing beams of elementary particles into one another could reveal how light and matter interact under extreme conditions that may exist on the surfaces of exotic astrophysical objects, in powerful cosmic light bursts and star explosions, in next-generation particle colliders and in hot, dense fusion plasma.
Researchers have for the first time detected chemical traces of red pigment in an ancient fossil – an exceptionally well-preserved mouse, not unlike today’s field mice, that roamed the fields of what is now the German village of Willershausen around 3 million years ago.
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