Skip to main content

ALS

Home / News

All News & Updates

How a Record-Breaking Copper Catalyst Converts CO2 Into Liquid Fuels

Scientists know that copper has a special ability to transform CO2 into valuable chemicals and fuels. But for many years, they struggled to understand how. Now, a research team has gained new insight by capturing real-time movies of copper nanoparticles as they convert CO2 and water into renewable fuels and chemicals: ethylene, ethanol, and propanol, among others. Read more »

New Year’s Message from Andreas Scholl

In this new year’s message, Interim Director Andreas Scholl reflects on the last year’s accomplishments, what makes him proud to work at the ALS, and how the community can be involved in shaping the facility’s future. Read more »

Copper Migrates to Surface of Topological Insulator in Air

An ambient-pressure study of a topological insulator doped with copper revealed that the copper atoms, inserted between the material’s layers, migrate to the surface when exposed to air. The work represents a novel way of modifying the material’s surface composition, which can confer it with new properties such as superconductivity. Read more »

Percolating Puddles in Rich Quantum Landscapes

Combining x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy (XPCS) with scanning micro x-ray diffraction (SµXRD), researchers found that charge density wave domains (known as “puddles”) in a nickelate material exhibit two types of dynamics: small puddles actively “percolate” (fluctuate in size and shape), while large puddles are more static. Read more »

Charge Density Wave Found in Magnetic Kagome Crystal

Researchers discovered a wave-like charge order in a magnetic material with a “kagome” geometric structure and obtained clues to the order’s origins in the material’s electronic structure. By helping to connect certain structures with emergent quantum properties, the work brings us a step closer to the goal of creating materials by design. Read more »PPT-icon-35 PDF-icon-35

Valeriy Yashchuk Elected SPIE Fellow

ALS Senior Staff Scientist and Metrology Program Lead Valeriy Yashchuk has been named a 2023 Fellow of SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics. Fellows are members of distinction who have made significant scientific and technical contributions in the multidisciplinary fields of optics, photonics, and imaging.  Read more »

Save the Date: 2023 User Meeting & Visioning Workshops

The 2023 ALS User Meeting & Visioning Workshops will be held as a hybrid event September 11–15, 2023. The User Meeting, chaired by Yu He, Wendy Gu, and Devin Grabner, will take place Monday and Tuesday. The second half of the week will offer users, staff, and invited guests the opportunity to shape the facility’s future through visioning workshops. Read more »

March 1 Deadline for General User Proposals

The User Office is accepting new General User Proposals (GUPs) from scientists who wish to conduct research at the ALS in the 2023-2 (August–December) cycle. The deadline for submissions is March 1, 2023. Applicants are reminded that they may request joint access to the Molecular Foundry, a nanoscience user facility at Berkeley Lab, to support their ALS activities. Read more »