Advanced Light Source

The SYnergistic Neutron and Photon Science – Intelligence (SYNAPS-I) project is accelerating discovery, thanks to expertise and hard work from computer scientists, beamline scientists, and experimentalists. This embodies , and we love what our teammates at Argonne National Laboratory's Advanced Photon Source are doing with ptychography for the microelectronics field.

Take a look at their latest SYNAPS-I news!

AI is moving beyond analyzing scientific data to helping scientists decide what to do next. At a recent demonstration at Argonne, the SYNAPS-I project (part of the U.S. Department of Energy's Genesis Mission) unveiled agentic AI that can understand natural-language instructions, analyze X-ray images in real time, find important features and autonomously guide experiments.

The work points toward a future of “self-driving” scientific instruments, where AI can adapt experiments as they happen and help researchers explore materials faster and more efficiently.

The SYNAPS-I team is led by Berkeley Lab and includes Argonne National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Partner facilities include the Advanced Light Source, Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, High Flux Isotope Reactor, Linac Coherent Light Source, National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, National Synchrotron Light Source II, Spallation Neutron Source and Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Light Source. Tests were performed at the Center for Nanoscale Materials beamline at the APS.

https://www.anl.gov/article/a-new-kind-of-microscope-agentic-ai-turns-simple-language-into-selfguided-experimentation

We're wrapping up the first Bay Area Light Sources Users' Meeting of all three local light sources!

SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source & Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, and Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source thank you for coming to SLAC!

The Advanced Light Source (ALS) has been working with NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration for over a decade to study a crucial, life-saving process: how spacecraft heat shields degrade under extreme conditions during atmospheric reentry.

This time, researchers reached even higher temperatures than ever before — using a custom sample environment found only at the ALS that independently controls temperature, pressure, and gas mixture to recreate real reentry conditions.

Using X-ray micro-computed tomography combined with AI-powered image enhancement, the team captured real-time, 3D views of two NASA heat shield materials as they broke down at 1,652°F — revealing striking structural differences that affect how each performs during reentry.

"Nearly every major NASA ablative heat shield material has been studied with this technique at the Advanced Light Source, including those relevant to the Artemis and Mars entry missions," said Vishnu Oruganti, an ALS user.

The findings are already helping engineers improve how they model and design thermal protection systems for missions like Artemis — bringing crews home safely.

(Full story link in comments below)

Get ready for the 2026 Bay Area Joint Users' Meeting! Taking place at National Accelerator Laboratory, this year's meeting is bringing together the scientific communities of Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL), and Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source . We kick off the meeting on Sunday, September 20, and every day through Friday, September 25, will be filled with the latest scientific and facility updates.

Map out your user meeting experience by checking out our overview, and get the full details on our meeting website (link in first comment). See you there!

You've got a chance to immerse yourself in the ALS community! Applications are now open for and to start in 2027, and all the details are available on our website (see the link in the first comment). Please note the earlier fellowship start time and increased flexibility in order to maximize the hours of light before dark time for the ALS Upgrade Project. We'd love to have you join us at Berkeley Lab 🤗

Check out how Harry Lisabeth used microtomography at Beamline 8.3.2 to study moon physics!

Happy International Asteroid Day! Our friends NASA Earth are raising awareness of near earth objects, and we invite you all to take a closer look at the asteroids that have landed at the ALS. Check out the links in the first comment to read more about Asteroids Bennu and Ryugu! U.S. Department of Energy - Berkeley Lab

Registration is now open for the Bay Area Light Sources Joint Users’ Meeting! Join us September 20–25, 2026, in Menlo Park at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to celebrate the amazing work from the ALS, LCLS, and SSRL communities.

Don't miss out: register by September 8

cc: Berkeley Lab

https://cvent.me/YaxdlE

Researchers engineered protein-like polymers that replicate complex enzyme functions. This work, which was verified using X-ray characterization techniques at the Advanced Light Source (ALS), offers a cost-effective, scalable approach that paves the way for functional materials in biomedicine, energy, and manufacturing. Read more: https://als.lbl.gov/a-new-framework-for-designing-synthetic-enzymes/

📸 Schematic comparing the global folding patterns, chemical structures, and active sites of a) natural protein demonstrating a rigid secondary structure of regular, local folding patterns in the chain of amino acids; and b) the protein-like polymers created in this study, which do not form secondary structures but instead adopt varying conformations based on the hydrophobic (water-repelling) properties of segments in the chain. Red, grey, blue and yellow correspond to very hydrophobic, hydrophobic, hydrophilic (water-loving) and very hydrophilic amino acid residues, respectively. The chemical structures of key functional residues are shown in the inset boxes. (Credit: Ting Xu/UC Berkeley/LBNL)