A Structural Biologist's Guide to High Energy Data Collection Facilities

LCLS, the world’s first hard X-ray free-electron laser, pushes science to new extremes with ultrabright, ultrashort pulses that capture atomic-scale snapshots in quadrillionths of a second. These images can reveal never-before-seen structures and properties in matter, and can be compiled to make movies of molecules in motion. Since its 2009 launch, LCLS has drawn researchers in a wide array of scientific fields from around the globe to explore the innermost workings and properties of common and exotic materials at the nanoscale. Scientists face intense competition for approval of experiments at LCLS; they typically join forces in large collaborations to submit proposals, and fewer than one in four experiments are accepted on average. To accommodate more world-class research, plans are already in progress for a second X-ray laser, LCLS-II.

Overview