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2021 Highly Cited Researchers

Clarivate recognizes the true pioneers in their fields over the last decade, demonstrated by the production of multiple highly-cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year in the Web of Science™. Congratulations to Jinghua Guo, Zahid Hussain, Sung-Kwan Mo, and Wanli Yang! Read more »

Doctoral and Postdoctoral Fellowship Applications Open Nov. 1

The ALS’s commitment to recruiting a vibrant, diverse, and talented workforce is paramount to promoting a diverse lab community. To support the next generation of researchers, we have two types of fellowships to fund research at our facility. Applications for the doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships will be accepted November 1–December 1. Read more »

Wanli Yang, RIXS Senior Scientist

Wanli Yang was recently honored as an American Physical Society fellow and is a member of an R&D 100 award-winning team for the second time. He credits his love of physics with a total accident—reading a book he borrowed from a classmate in high school! Read more »

Sounding the Antiviral Alarm: A New Family of Immune-System Sensors

Comparison of enzyme structures from humans and insects revealed a new family of evolutionarily related immune-system sensors, triggered by viral RNA or DNA to produce tailored signals that initiate antiviral action. The results shed new light on the diversity and development of immune defenses in animals. Read more »

The Elusive Electronic Structure of Liquid Metals Unveiled

Over 50 years ago, renowned physicists formulated theoretical models for the electronic structure of liquid metals. Now, for the first time, researchers observed the distinct spectral features predicted by those models, at the interface of a crystalline insulator (black phosphorus) and disordered dopants (alkali metals). Read more »

Summer 2021 Shutdown

Last week the ALS returned to user operations after its summer shutdown. A lot of work was accomplished, including several large projects in the storage ring and maintenance and updates for the accelerator and beamlines. Read more »

3D View Reveals Shadow Effect after Rapid Battery Charging

Using 3D x-ray microtomography, researchers measured the lithiation levels of particles in Li-ion battery electrodes during charging. At faster charging rates, lithium metal accumulated on the electrode surface and created a “shadow effect,” a region of poor lithiation in the electrode at some distance away from the lithium plating. Read more »

When Timing Isn’t Everything: Spontaneous Chemical Dynamics

Researchers combined aspects of x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) with correlation spectroscopy—a statistical method capable of detecting patterns in microscopic fluctuations across space and time. The new technique, called time-correlation XPS, allows researchers to monitor dynamics without the need for a timed trigger. Read more »

U.S. Energy Secretary Granholm Visits Berkeley Lab

In a visit to Berkeley Lab on August 20, Secretary Granholm and Congresswoman Barbara Lee met doctoral fellow Mikayla Barry at ALS Beamline 9.3.1. They also heard about extreme ultraviolet lithography and how protein crystallography enabled critical COVID research and Jennifer Doudna’s work on CRISPR. Read more »

Machine-Learning Team Receives 2021 Halbach Award

This year’s Halbach Award for Innovative Instrumentation at the ALS went to a team of accelerator physicists and computer scientists who were able to use machine-learning techniques to solve a problem that has plagued third-generation light sources for a long time: fluctuations in beam size due to the motion of insertion devices. Read more »