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.

Some of science’s biggest mysteries unfold at the smallest scales. Researchers investigating super small phenomena—from the quantum nature of superconductivity to the mechanics that drive photosynthesis—come to the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to use the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS).

Like a giant microscope, LCLS sends pulses of ultrabright X-rays to a suite of specialized scientific instruments. With these tools, scientists take crisp pictures of atomic motions, watch chemical reactions unfold, probe the properties of materials and explore fundamental processes in living things.