Playing billiards with a laser beam
A research team led by physicists at LMU Munich reports a significant advance in laser-driven particle acceleration. Using tiny plastic beads as targets, they have produced proton bunches that possess...
View ArticleUnique injector creates bunches of electrons to stimulate million-per-second...
Every powerful X-ray pulse produced for experiments at a next-generation laser project, now under construction, will start with a "spark"– a burst of electrons emitted when a pulse of ultraviolet light...
View ArticleSuperconducting X-ray laser takes shape in Silicon Valley
An area known for high-tech gadgets and innovation will soon be home to an advanced superconducting X-ray laser that stretches 3 miles in length, built by a collaboration of national laboratories. On...
View ArticleSlow 'hot electrons' could improve solar cell efficiency
Photons with energy higher than the band gap of the semiconductor absorbing them give rise to what are known as hot electrons. The extra energy in respect to the band gap is lost very fast, as it is...
View ArticleSuperradiance of an ensemble of nuclei excited by a free electron laser
A collaboration of scientists from five of the world's most advanced x-ray sources in Europe, Japan and the US, has succeeded in verifying a basic prediction of the quantum-mechanical behavior of...
View ArticleNovel lenses enable X-ray microscopy with record resolution
Scientists at DESY have developed novel lenses that enable X-ray microscopy with record resolution in the nanometre regime. Using new materials, the research team led by DESY scientist Sasa Bajt from...
View ArticleDiscovery points the way to better and cheaper transparent conductors
Researchers at the University of Liverpool have made a discovery that could improve the conductivity of a type of glass coating which is used on items such as touch screens, solar cells and energy...
View ArticleScientists invent technique to map energy and momentum of electrons beneath a...
For the first time, physicists have developed a technique that can peer deep beneath the surface of a material to identify the energies and momenta of electrons there.
View ArticleScientists enlist lichens to monitor air pollution
An MIPT-based team of researchers has proposed analyzing lichen composition to assess atmospheric air quality when conventional monitoring stations are unavailable. They produced a case study of the...
View ArticleXenon in the Super Proton Synchrotron—first tests for a photon factory
Accelerator operators can perform amazing acrobatics with particle beams, most recently in the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS), CERN's second-largest accelerator. For the first time, they have...
View ArticleNew 3-D models illustrate the effect of material roughness on electrons...
Photocathodes used in linear accelerator facilities, free electron lasers and advanced X-ray light sources generate a beam of electrons to probe matter at an atomic level. Advances in materials science...
View ArticleMethod to weigh galaxy clusters could help astronomers understand mysterious...
The furthest galaxy ever observed is so far away that the starlight we now detect was emitted less than 500m years after the Big Bang. It has taken about 13 billion years to reach us. But there's a lot...
View ArticleHigh-speed movie aids scientists who design glowing molecules
The crystal jellyfish swims off the coast of the Pacific Northwest and can illuminate the waters when disturbed. That glow comes from proteins that absorb energy and then release it as bright flashes.
View ArticleFirst imaging of free nanoparticles in laboratory experiment using a...
In a joint research project, scientists from the Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy (MBI), the Technische Universität Berlin (TU) and the University of Rostock have...
View ArticleWhen electrons ride a wave
Conventional electron accelerators have become an indispensable tool in modern research. The extremely bright radiation generated by synchrotrons, or free electron lasers, provides unique insights into...
View ArticleScientists create 'diamond rain' that forms in the interior of icy giant planets
In an experiment designed to mimic the conditions deep inside the icy giant planets of our solar system, scientists were able to observe "diamond rain" for the first time as it formed in high-pressure...
View ArticleFireworks on a pinhead as electrons enable colours in 100 000 pixels per inch
The image is on a canvas as wide as a human hair, its colours never fade, and they can be edited and erased on demand.
View ArticleReality check for topological insulators
Topological insulators, a class of materials which has been investigated for just over a decade, have been heralded as a new 'wonder material", as has graphene. But so far, topological insulators have...
View ArticleScientists get first direct look at how electrons 'dance' with vibrating atoms
Scientists at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have made the first direct measurements, and by far the most precise ones, of how electrons move in...
View ArticleA single electron's tiny leap sets off 'molecular sunscreen' response
In experiments at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, scientists were able to see the first step of a process that protects a DNA building block called thymine from sun...
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