The Physics department colloquia are usually on Friday afternoons at 3:30 pm in Lapham Hall Room 160. Coffee and cookies are served at 3:15 pm in the same room. Anyone is welcome.

Making Movies of Molecules – The Science and Application of X-rays Lasers
Dr. Daniel P. Stark Distinguished Staff Scientist, Stanford PULSE Institute; SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Over the past century X-rays have revolutionized medical imaging as well as numerous fields of science. Starting in the 1970’s powerful new X-ray sources based on large accelerators (the so-called synchrotrons) have dramatically advanced the scientific use of X-rays. Work at these facilities includes protein crystallography, various X-ray scattering and spectroscopy techniques as well as X-ray imaging and X-ray microscopy.

Very recently, new X-ray lasers, such as the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at Stanford’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, have come to light. These coherent X-ray sources produce ultra-short pulses with a brightness that is ten billion times larger than even the powerful synchrotron sources. For the first time, scientists can study matter not just at the length scale of the atoms and molecules, but also at the time scale of molecular motion. The dream of making molecular movies of a chemical reaction in real time is becoming reality. We will describe these machines and present some of the most exciting examples of recent X-ray laser research.