SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

The lithium ion batteries that power electric vehicles and phones charge and discharge by ferrying lithium ions back and forth between two electrodes, an anode and a cathode. The more lithium ions the electrodes are able to absorb and release, the more energy the battery can store. One issue plaguing today’s commercial battery materials is…

Despite its role in shaping life as we know it, many aspects of photosynthesis remain a mystery. An international collaboration between scientists at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and several other institutions is working to change that. The researchers used SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray laser to capture the most…

Over the past three decades, lithium-ion batteries, rechargeable batteries that move lithium ions back and forth to charge and discharge, have enabled smaller devices that juice up faster and last longer. Now, X-ray experiments at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have revealed that the pathways lithium ions…

When Angelo Dragone talks about designing microchips for cutting-edge scientific applications at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, it becomes immediately clear that it’s at least as much of an art form as it is research and engineering. Similar to the way painters follow an inspiration, carefully choose colors and place brush stroke…

Water’s lack of color, taste and smell make it seem simple – and on a molecular level, it is. However, when many water molecules come together they form a highly complex network of hydrogen bonds. This network is believed to be responsible for many of the peculiar properties of liquid water, but its behavior is…

An area known for high-tech gadgets and innovation will soon be home to an advanced superconducting X-ray laser that stretches 3 miles in length from the beginning of the accelerator to the end of the experimental halls, built by a collaboration of national laboratories. On January 19, the first section of the machine’s new accelerator…

Scientists at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have seen for the first time how atoms in iron-platinum nanoparticles – a next-generation material for magnetic data storage devices – respond extremely rapidly to brief laser flashes. Understanding these fundamental motions could potentially lead to new ways of manipulating and controlling such devices with…

Researchers from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have for the first time shown that neural networks – a form of artificial intelligence – can accurately analyze the complex distortions in spacetime known as gravitational lenses 10 million times faster than traditional methods. “Analyses that typically take weeks to months…

A new way of operating the powerful X-ray laser at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has enabled researchers to detect and measure fluctuations in magnetic structures being considered for new data storage and computing technologies. In a paper published earlier this month in Physical Review Letters, a team led by Joshua Turner, SLAC…

Some of the world’s tiniest crystals are known as “artificial atoms” because they can organize themselves into structures that look like molecules, including “superlattices” that are potential building blocks for novel materials. Now scientists from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have made the first observation of these nanocrystals rapidly…

In recent years, perovskites have taken the solar cell industry by storm. They are cheap, easy to produce and very flexible in their applications. Their efficiency at converting light into electricity has grown faster than that of any other material – from under four percent in 2009 to over 20 percent in 2017 – and…

In recent years, perovskites have taken the solar cell industry by storm. They are cheap, easy to produce and very flexible in their applications. Their efficiency at converting light into electricity has grown faster than that of any other material – from under four percent in 2009 to over 20 percent in 2017 – and…

Scientists at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have made the first direct measurements, and by far the most precise ones, of how electrons move in sync with atomic vibrations rippling through an exotic material, as if they were dancing to the same beat. The vibrations are called phonons, and…

When scientists at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory focused the full intensity of the world’s most powerful X-ray laser on a small molecule, they got a surprise: A single laser pulse stripped all but a few electrons out of the molecule’s biggest atom from the inside out, leaving a void that started…

Hydrogen is one of the most promising clean fuels for use in cars, houses and portable generators. When produced from water using renewable energy resources, it is also a sustainable fuel with no carbon footprint. However, water-splitting systems require a very efficient catalyst to speed up the chemical reaction that splits water into hydrogen and…

In a proof-of-concept study published in Nature Physics, researchers drew magnetic squares in a nonmagnetic material with an electrified pen and then “read” this magnetic doodle with X-rays. The experiment demonstrated that magnetic properties can be created and annihilated in a nonmagnetic material with precise application of an electric field – something long sought by scientists…

Scientists at Stanford University and the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have discovered a way to use diamondoids – the smallest possible bits of diamond – to assemble atoms into the thinnest possible electrical wires, just three atoms wide. By grabbing various types of atoms and putting them together LEGO-style, the new technique…

In many parts of the world, the only way to make germy water safe is by boiling, which consumes precious fuel, or by putting it out in the sun in a plastic bottle so ultraviolet rays will kill the microbes. But because UV rays carry only 4 percent of the sun’s total energy, the UV…

In experiments at two Department of Energy national labs – SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory – scientists at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) have experimentally confirmed critical aspects of how a new type of microelectronic device, the memristor, works at an atomic scale. This result is an important step in designing these…