A new lithium-polysulfide flow battery design could enable solar and wind energy to become major suppliers to the electrical grid. Menlo Park, California — Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have designed a low-cost, long-life battery that could enable solar and wind energy to become major [...]

Theoretical physicists from the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology detail a new mathematical description of how dark matter particles behave, which could help narrow the search for them. Now that it looks like the hunt for the Higgs boson is over, particles of dark matter are at the top of the physics “Most [...]

By improving an algorithm that is important for studying quasars, astrophysicists determined the radio and optical luminosity evolutions for a set of more than 5000 quasars combining SDSS optical and FIRST radio data. In the nearly six decades since quasars were discovered, the list of these energetic galaxies powered by supermassive black holes has grown [...]

In an effort to keep pace with the demand for faster computing devices, scientists at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory are exploring the use of laser light to read and write magnetic data by quickly flipping tiny magnetic domains. Experiments with SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray laser have given scientists their first detailed [...]

Based on the photon-enhanced thermionic emission (PETE) process, a new solar-energy device is about 100 times more efficient than its previous design. Scientists working at the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences (SIMES) have improved an innovative solar-energy device to be about 100 times more efficient than its previous design in converting the sun’s [...]

In a newly published study, scientists from the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory detail a new set of tools that better pinpoint the arrival time of X-ray and other laser pulses to within a few femtoseconds of accuracy. With SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source X-ray laser, timing is everything. Its pulses are designed to explore atomic-scale [...]

A new study from SLAC and Stanford researchers examines the atomic-scale details of how superionic nanoscale materials switch from a state that is poorly conducting to one that is highly conducting, taking a step forward toward using these materials in low-cost solid-state electrical batteries. A material that could enable faster memory chips and more efficient [...]

Using the LCLS X-ray laser, researchers have demonstrated the ability to manipulate and study ultrafast energy transfers using a technique called X-ray absorption spectroscopy. The way electrons move within and between molecules, transferring energy as they go, plays an important role in many chemical and biological processes, such as the conversion of sunlight to energy [...]

A newly published study details how researchers turned an ordinary protein into an artificial enzyme, a biological catalyst capable of joining two segments of RNA. Five years ago, a pair of researchers used a clever update on a technique called in vitro evolution – evolution in a test tube – to turn an ordinary protein [...]

Using a sulfur cathode made of nanoparticles where each tiny sulfur nugget is surrounded by a hard shell of porous titanium dioxide, researchers at Stanford University designed a cathode that can store five times more energy than today’s commercial technology and set a world record for energy storage along the way. SLAC and Stanford scientists [...]

An international team of scientists used X-rays from the Linac Coherent Light Source to study and dissected a process in multi-million-degree space plasmas that produces some of the brightest cosmic X-ray signals. Menlo Park, California – Scientists have used powerful X-rays from the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) [...]

Scientists at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory are using X-ray lasers to determine the structures of biological molecules that are important for human health, solving the first new biological structure with a free-electron laser. Menlo Park, California — An international group of scientists working at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has [...]