SSRL in SLAC Today

March 27 SLAC Public Lecture: "Engineering Human Touch"

Thu, 2012/03/22 - 6:55am

Special Lunch Lecture: "Engineering Human Touch" (Kavli Auditorium)

Wed, 2012/03/21 - 12:01pm

Event Series: SLAC Public Lecture Event Date: Thursday, March 29, 2012 - 12:00p.m. - 1:00p.m.

Synchrotron Radiation in Polymer Science

Tue, 2012/03/20 - 4:23pm

Event Date: Friday, March 30, 2012 (All day) - Monday, April 2, 2012 (All day)

Special Lunch Lecture March 29: "Engineering Human Touch"

Tue, 2012/03/20 - 11:12am

Obama to Nominate Bienenstock to National Science Board

Wed, 2012/03/14 - 6:45am

from Stanford Report

Physicists Honored with "GLAM" Portraits at Stanford

Tue, 2012/03/13 - 6:45am

from Stanford Report

Arthur Bienenstock, former director of SSRL and professor emeritus of photon science, was among several Stanford physicists honored with painted portraits that were unveiled at a reception held on the main campus March 9, at the Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials.

Exotic Material Shows Promise as Flexible, Transparent Electrode

Wed, 2012/03/07 - 7:50am

by Mike Ross

An international team of scientists with roots at SLAC and Stanford has shown that ultra-thin sheets of an exotic material remain transparent and highly conductive even after being deeply flexed 1,000 times and folded and creased like a piece of paper.

X-rays Reveal How Soil Bacteria Carry Out Surprising Chemistry

Mon, 2012/03/05 - 7:55am

by Lori Ann White

Researchers working at SLAC have used powerful X-rays to help decipher how certain natural antibiotics defy a longstanding set of chemical rules – a mechanism that has baffled organic chemists for decades. Their results are reported today in Nature.

X-rays Reveal How Soil Bacteria Carry Out Surprising Chemistry

Mon, 2012/03/05 - 7:00am

Researchers working at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have used powerful X-rays to help decipher how certain natural antibiotics defy a longstanding set of chemical rules – a mechanism that has baffled organic chemists for decades. Their results are reported today in Nature. Read more ...

From the Director of Photon Science: What’s In a Name?

Fri, 2012/03/02 - 6:55am

by Cynthia Friend

An organization’s name evokes images about what it does and what it represents. In SLAC’s Photon Science Directorate, we would like our name to more accurately reflect our scientific activities and aspirations. ... We think our name should signify the range of exciting activities in the Photon Science Directorate. Let us know what you think ...

Word of the Week: Optogenetics

Fri, 2012/03/02 - 6:20am

Adapted from image of neuron by Nicolas P. Rougier

Introducing Synchrotrons into the High School Classroom

Thu, 2012/03/01 - 3:36pm

Event Series: Photon Science Seminar Event Scientific Area: Accelerator Science Event Organization: SSRL events Event Date: Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - 3:00p.m. - 4:00p.m.

Field-driven Polarization and Domain Dynamics of Ferroelectric/Dielectric Superlattices

Tue, 2012/02/28 - 4:23pm

Event Series: SSRL Presents Event Scientific Area: Other Event Organization: SSRL events Event Date: Thursday, March 1, 2012 - 10:00a.m. - 11:00a.m.

Investigating Extreme States of Matter by X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy

Fri, 2012/02/24 - 10:24am

Event Series: Photon Science Seminar Event Scientific Area: Photon Science Event Organization: SSRL events Event Date: Wednesday, February 29, 2012 - 3:00p.m. - 4:00p.m.

From the Director of SSRL: An Ultimate Storage Ring and the Future of Light Sources

Fri, 2012/02/24 - 6:55am

by Chi-Chang Kao

Earlier this month, lab Director Persis Drell, Accelerator Directorate Deputy Director Bob Hettel, Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) Scientific Advisor Jerry Hastings and I attended a meeting in Grenoble, France, to discuss the concept of an Ultimate Storage Ring (USR), a light source designed to produce brighter X-ray beams than current synchrotrons can offer.

SSRL Worker who Keeps Instruments Cool Among Spot Award Winners

Thu, 2012/02/16 - 6:30am

by Diane Rezendes Khirallah

They may not realize it, but one of the SLAC employees SSRL users count on is Paul Grunow. Part of his job is to keep the SSRL’s monochromators up and running. A monochromator is an optical instrument that selects a single X-ray frequency (hence, mono) from a beam that includes many frequencies (or colors, from chroma) for use in experiments.

SSRL Symposium Pays Tribute to Pioneering Scientist

Mon, 2012/02/13 - 6:10am

by Lori Ann White

Last week more than 70 scientists from Europe, Japan and all over the United States came for a one-day symposium celebrating the life and work of Hirotsugu Tsuruta, a senior scientist at Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource who passed away last August at the age of 49. Tsuruta, who joined SSRL in 1991, was a driving force behind the development of Beam Line 4-2 ...

Feb. 8 Photon Science Seminar: "X-rays and DFT Cross-examine Fuel Cell Catalysts"

Tue, 2012/02/07 - 6:49am

French Popular-Science Magazine Calls SLAC Research Magnifique!

Mon, 2012/01/23 - 6:55am

by Lori Ann White

The French popular-science magazine La Recherche ("Research") listed the discovery at SLAC of chemical traces of pigment in a bird fossil as a top 10 discovery in 2011. Researchers examined the remains of Confuciusornis sanctus, which lived 120 million years ago, at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource.

SLAC Teamwork Doesn't Take a Vacation

Fri, 2012/01/20 - 6:45am

by Lori Ann White

On Dec. 16, the final work day before the winter shutdown, SLAC Chief Operating Officer Sandy Merola sent an email urging everyone who could to ”take time off and enjoy the holidays." Quite a few had already taken the words to heart, turning the campus into a ghost town. Then, operators for SPEAR3, the storage ring for the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, noticed a problem ...

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