Science Highlights

Approximately 1,700 scientists visit SSRL annually to conduct experiments in broad disciplines including life sciences, materials, environmental science, and accelerator physics. Science highlights featured here and in our monthly newsletter, Headlines, increase the visibility of user science as well as the important contribution of SSRL in facilitating basic and applied scientific research. Many of these scientific highlights have been included in reports to funding agencies and have been picked up by other media. Users are strongly encouraged to contact us when exciting results are about to be published. We can work with users and the SLAC Office of Communication to develop the story and to communicate user research findings to a much broader audience. 

Science Highlight Archive Science Highlight Banner Images

The Inhomogeneous Structure of Water at Ambient Conditions

H20 molecule

Water has unusual and complex properties that make it especially well suited to support life.

BL4-2

Lack of a Jahn-Teller Distortion in La1-xSrxCoO3 Determined by EXAFS and Neutron PDF Studies

Figure 3.

The arrangement of atoms in molecules and complexes that include atoms with many interacting electrons can be hard to predict.

BL10-2

Expanded Intermediate-State Structure of a Bacterial Mechanosensitive Channel

Figure 1

You have probably never seen a bacteria pop. Yet, as solution-filled balloons, bacterial cells are susceptible to changes in pressure.

BL12-2

Understanding Charge Transport in Plastic Electronics

Figure 1

Recent advances in materials research are setting the stage for macroelectronics to have a disruptive effect on everyday technology.

BL7-2

Structure of an Unusually Small RNA Switch Provides Insight into the Minimal Requirements for Microbial Gene Regulation

Figure 1
BL7-1

Bimolecular Crystals of Fullerenes in Conjugated Polymers and the Implications of Molecular Mixing for Solar Cells

Figure 1

Solar panels contain a number of solar cells that convert light into electricity.

BL2-1

Structure of Pentacene Monolayers on Amorphous Silicon Oxide and Relation to Charge Transport

Figure 1

Nothing seems to move as fast as the field of consumer electronics.

BL11-3

Marine Diatoms Survive Iron Droughts in the Ocean by Storing Iron in Ferritin

Figure 1

Diatoms, unicellular algae that exist almost anywhere there is water, have recently attracted attention as potential thwarters of climate change.

BL7-1

Importance of Iron Speciation to Aerosol Solubility: Potential Effects of Aerosol Source on Ocean Photosynthesis

Figure 1

The world's animals depend on plants, plants depend on photosynthesis, and photosynthesis depends on iron.

BL2-3

The Source of Airborne Lead: Recycling Pb-Contaminated Soils

Figure 1

The amount of lead particulates in air has decreased significantly as the U.S. began adopting the use of unleaded gasoline and lead limits in the 1970s.

BL7-3

Collaborate on Science Highlights

We can work with users and the SLAC Office of Communication to develop the story and to communicate user research findings to a much broader audience. 

SSRL User Office