Upgraded X-ray laser shows its soft side

The second phase of a major upgrade project is now online at the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), the pioneering X-ray free-electron laser at Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. On September 12, ...

Attosecond pulses reveal electronic ripples in molecules

In the first experiment to take advantage of a new technology for producing powerful attosecond X-ray laser pulses, a research team led by scientists from the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and ...

Scientists develop new method to create super stable X-rays

Modern X-ray laser facilities like the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory allow scientists to study how nature behaves at ultrasmall and ultrafast scales. ...

X-rays indicate that water can behave like a liquid crystal

Scientists at Stockholm University have discovered that water can exhibit a similar behavior to that of a liquid crystal when illuminated with laser light. This effect originates by the alignment of water molecules, which ...

Looping X-rays to produce higher quality laser pulses

Ever since 1960, when Theodore Maiman built the world's first infrared laser, physicists dreamed of producing X-ray laser pulses that are capable of probing the ultrashort and ultrafast scales of atoms and molecules.

Gold in limbo between solid and melted states

If you heat a solid material enough, the thermal energy (latent heat) causes the material's molecules begin to break apart, forming a liquid. One of the most familiar examples of this phase transition from a well-ordered ...

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