World's First X-ray Laser Powers Up


An x-ray laser may sound like something you'd only find in a James Bond movie, but scientists have made the device a reality. Last tuesday, physicists at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, California, announced that they have coaxed test beams out of their Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), the first laser working at "hard" x-ray wavelengths. With further refinement, the LCLS might be able to determine the structure of a protein by blasting just a single molecule with its beam; it also might be able to squeeze matter to high pressures and temperatures to simulate conditions in the centers of planets.

Full article by Adrian Cho on ScienceNOW

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