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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

Powerful pulses of X-rays see through molecules in an instant

Electrons are corralled to create an X-ray laser that snaps shots in just ten quadrillionths of a second.
LCLS

A researcher adjusts equipment at the X-ray laser facility in Menlo Park, California. Credit: Andy Freeberg/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory/CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

An accelerator has generated brief X-ray bursts three times more powerful than any other such pulse, in an advance that promises to deliver sharper images of biological molecules and chemical structures.

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Nature 553, 252 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-00475-x

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