Berkeley Lab
Bringing Science Solutions to the World

The Advanced Light Source is a U.S. Department of Energy scientific user facility at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Our mission is to advance science for the benefit of society by providing our world-class synchrotron light source capabilities and expertise to a broad scientific community.

Fluctuations Mark Phase Changes in Magnetic Films

Researchers discovered that nanoscale spin fluctuations deep inside ordered states of a magnetic film can characterize phase transitions, independent of underlying magnetic interactions. The results provide a new way to predict and understand phase transitions in materials relevant to high-density, energy-efficient microelectronics. Read more »PPT-icon-35

Haris Mahic, Accelerator and Floor Operator

As an accelerator and floor operator, Haris’s work takes him all over the ALS. But, it is his photography hobby that has left an indelible mark on the ALS homepage. Let’s take a closer look at how he helps keep the ALS running and what brought him here in the first place. Read more »

Joint ALS/ALS-U Statement on Dark Time Delay

The ALS-U project recently made an extensive update to its project plan, resulting in a shift in the start of the one-year dark time from October 1, 2025, to June 22, 2026. The updated project schedule will allow the ALS to deliver more beamtime to users before the start of the dark time and further reduces the possibility that the ALS dark time will overlap with the APS’s ramp-up to full operations following their upgrade, currently in progress. Read more »

An Organic Transistor That Can Sense, Process, and Remember

Traditional AI hardware employs physically separated information sensing, processing, and memory architecture, a configuration that suffers from large energy and time overhead. Now, researchers have fabricated an organic transistor device that can simultaneously act as the sensor and processing core of a streamlined AI hardware system. Read more »

ALS Work on Roman Concrete Highlighted in German-French Documentary

A study on the remarkable durability of 2000-year old Roman concrete, by ALS user Marie Jackson with ALS beamline scientist Nobumichi Tamura, was recently highlighted in “Miracle Materials,” a science documentary produced by a German-French company, Gruppe 5, for airing on the Eurpean public service channel, ARTE. Read more »