The Stanford Photonics Research Center

December 4, 2008

MENLO PARK, California -- Wired.com recently toured the longest linear accelerator in the world, which resides beneath nondescript industrial buildings near the Stanford University campus.
 
Scientists at the Stanford Linear Accelerator, or SLAC, labs have won three Nobel prizes and are currently amassing the scientific evidence that there is more matter than antimatter in the universe, by smashing positrons and electrons together.
 
The lab's next big project, the Linac Coherent Light Source, will go online next year. Its X-ray free electron laser will be roughly 10 billion times more powerful than existing X-ray sources and let researchers capture movies of atoms and molecules during chemical reactions.
 
Photos and more here.