X-ray techniques comprise a range of experimental methods that exploit the interaction of X-ray photons with matter to probe structural, electronic, and compositional properties across length scales from atomic to macroscopic. Major classes include X-ray diffraction (single-crystal, powder, and small- or wide-angle scattering) for determining crystallographic and nanoscale structure; X-ray spectroscopy (XANES, EXAFS, XPS) for probing oxidation states, local coordination, and electronic structure; and X-ray imaging and tomography for spatially resolved density and phase-contrast mapping. These techniques rely on well-characterized X-ray sources, monochromators, detectors, and often synchrotron or free-electron laser facilities to achieve high brilliance, energy tunability, temporal resolution, and quantitative analysis.
What happens when you squeeze DNA? Can pressure reveal something about how our genetic material is packed, protected, and accessed?
Molecular & Computational biology
Oct 20, 2025
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66
X-ray beams aren't used just by doctors to see inside your body and tell whether you have a broken bone. More powerful beams made up of very short flashes of X-rays can help scientists peer into the structure of individual ...
Optics & Photonics
Oct 15, 2025
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40
When German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays in the late 1800s while experimenting with cathode ray tubes, it was a breakthrough that transformed science and medicine. So much so that the basic concept remains ...
Optics & Photonics
Sep 18, 2025
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34
Alexander Fleming's accidental discovery of penicillin in 1928 changed the world: Once-common bacterial infections, sometimes deadly, were treatable, and a slew of antibiotics followed. But bacteria have proven a wily adversary, ...
Biotechnology
Sep 15, 2025
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25
In a step toward making ultra-bright X-ray sources more widely available, an international collaboration led by the University of Michigan—with experiments at the U.K.'s Central Laser Facility—has mapped key aspects of electron ...
Optics & Photonics
Sep 10, 2025
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60
Using small angle neutron and X-ray scattering, researchers from the European Spallation Source and RWTH Aachen University have compared the nanostructure of gluten-free and normal spaghetti, finding that the kind with gluten ...
Nanophysics
Sep 8, 2025
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563
Ferroelectrics are seen as promising candidates for the electronics of tomorrow. An experiment at the world's largest X-ray laser—the European XFEL in Schenefeld near Hamburg—now shows that their properties can be controlled ...
Condensed Matter
Sep 1, 2025
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83
A team of Johns Hopkins researchers is using an innovative X-ray imaging approach to reveal how compression reshapes the tiny spaces and stresses within sandstone—findings that could predict how this common rock used for ...
Earth Sciences
Aug 21, 2025
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47
A team led by scientists at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have generated a highly exotic type of light beam, called a Poincaré beam, using the FERMI free-electron laser (FEL) facility in ...
Optics & Photonics
Aug 14, 2025
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90
With a suite of reimagined instruments at SLAC's LCLS facility, researchers see massive improvement in data quality and take up scientific inquiries that were out of reach just one year ago.
General Physics
Aug 8, 2025
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