Feature Articles

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Updates every hour. Last Updated: 1-Jul-2025 03:10 ET (1-Jul-2025 07:10 GMT/UTC)

27-Oct-2023

Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm celebrates revolutionary X-ray laser upgrade at SLAC

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

The Secretary and other U.S. Department of Energy officials spent an afternoon touring SLAC’s energy labs, the superconducting-accelerator-powered Linac Coherent Light Source, and the Legacy Survey of Space and Time Camera. At a celebratory gathering, they commended staff for their vision and dedication in bringing LCLS-II “first light” to fruition.

2-Oct-2023

Q&A with SLAC lab director John Sarrao

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

A materials scientist who specializes in superconductors, Sarrao brings a deep background in national lab leadership and the evolution of SLAC science. 

29-Sep-2023

Testing, testing, testing: How SLAC researchers make sure the LSST Camera is the best it can be

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Three SLAC scientists explain what they do to ensure the world's largest digital camera for astronomy is ready for the big time.

15-Sep-2023

Jim Sebek wins 2023 Lytle Award for decades of synchrotron problem solving and dedication

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Jim Sebek, an electrical engineer and physicist at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, will receive this year’s Farrel W. Lytle Award for countless contributions towards building, maintaining and operating the synchrotron for nearly four decades.

7-Sep-2023

DOE awards a SLAC-led research team $12 million to help improve response time to dangerous pathogens

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Researchers with the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and other institutions have been awarded $12 million in funding to help accelerate society’s response to emerging pathogens by improving X-ray science technology and processes.

7-Aug-2023

Electrons now moving through the superconducting accelerator that will power SLAC’s X-ray laser

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

After more than a decade of work, electrons are now flying through a new superconducting accelerator at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, preparing to power the world’s most powerful X-ray free electron laser. This project – named the Linac Coherent Light Source II (LCLS-II) – is now steps away from releasing X-ray flashes that will open a new era in scientific research at that atomic level.

2-Aug-2023

Researchers show how to increase X-ray laser brightness and power using a crystal cavity and diamond mirrors

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

SLAC researchers have shown how to make X-ray pulses at X-ray free-electron lasers even brighter and more reliable by building a special cavity chamber and diamond mirrors around an XFEL. The researchers calculated how the cavity system captures incoherent X-ray pulses and transforms them into more coherent, brighter X-rays.

6-Jul-2023

Humidity – not just light – causes color degradation in historical paintings, researchers discover

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

When you look at a painting in a museum, the colors that you see are likely less bright than they were originally, something that had previously been attributed mainly to light exposure. Now, researchers have discovered a new cause of color degradation: humidity.

22-Jun-2023

Q&A: On the road toward cleaner batteries

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Batteries come in many shapes and sizes, but their materials can be hard to source. SLAC researchers are trying to build them with more abundant and ethically mined elements.

18-May-2023

First SuperCDMS detector towers journey from SLAC to SNOLAB

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

The first pair of towers are now at the Ontario facility, where they'll further the hunt for dark matter particles.