10/22/2026
I could be brown, I could be blue, I could be violet sky! 🎵
Did you know that every hutch at LCLS has its own color? Area managers for each hutch try to match their supplies and equipment in the corresponding hutch color, making it easy to identify where they belong, and fun to look at. Which is your favorite?
🟤 qRIXS & chemRIXS - Materials Science Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering & Liquid Chemistry Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering
The qRIXS and chemRIXS instruments use a technique called resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS). With this method, researchers bombard a sample with X-ray pulses, exciting the electrons deep within, then releasing that excess energy in the form of light. Researchers use this light to reconstruct the reaction and study a material’s properties in fine detail.
🔵 TMO - Time-resolved AMO
In the Time-resolved Atomic, Molecular and Optical Science (TMO) end station, several new instruments are leveraging the LCLS-II upgrade to study how electrons kickstart processes in biology, chemistry and materials science. It follows in the footsteps of the now-retired AMO instrument, where scientists developed a way to measure ultrashort X-ray pulses that last for just several hundred attoseconds (or billionths of a billionth of a second).
🟣 XCS - X-ray Correlation Spectroscopy
The X-ray Correlation Spectroscopy (XCS) instrument observes dynamical changes of large groups of atoms in condensed matter systems over a wide range of time scales.
Characteristic timescales ranging from 10 milliseconds to thousands of seconds can be explored using a sequential mode of operation. Ultrafast timescales ranging from 100 femtosecond to several nanoseconds can be probed using a novel “Split-and-Delay” mode of operation.
🔴 CXI - Coherent X-ray Imaging
The CXI instrument uses unique hard X-ray pulses in a vacuum sample environment to provide low background suitable for forward scattering experiments and weakly scattering systems.
CXI primarily uses the “diffraction-before-destruction” method, a technique to quickly acquire data with ultrashort pulses during measurement before the sample is destroyed, benefiting systems that suffer from electronic and structural damage during long-term exposures to X-rays.
🟠 MFX - Macromolecular Femtosecond Crystallography
The MFX instrument is the prime endstation at LCLS for multi-modal crystallographic measurements at atmospheric pressure, combining both macromolecular X-ray crystallography and X-ray spectroscopy. The MFX instrument uses short XFEL X-ray pulses to limit observed damage to samples during the exposure of radiation-sensitive samples, primarily biological samples, at room temperature.
🟡 MEC - Matter in Extreme Conditions
With its high peak brightness, short pulse duration, and tunable X-ray photon energy, our X-ray laser provides revolutionary capabilities to study the transient behavior of matter in extreme conditions.
The MEC instrument combines our unique beam with high power optical laser beams, and a suite of dedicated diagnostics tailored for this field of science. Researchers can create incredibly hot and dense matter that mimics the extreme conditions in the hearts of stars and planets.
🟢 XPP - X-ray Pump Probe
The XPP instrument predominantly uses ultrashort optical laser pulses to generate transient states of matter which are subsequently probed by hard X-ray pulses from the LCLS. The X-ray pulses help to reveal structural dynamics initiated by the laser excitation at the timescale of atomic motions in solid, liquid and gaseous specimens. Researchers have leveraged XPP to pioneer X-ray optics technologies, including cavity-based X-ray oscillators that are shaping future X-ray free-electron laser facilities.
🩷 TXI - Tender X-ray Instrument
This instrument is designed to incorporate X-ray Pump and X-ray Probe techniques, and serve as a general purpose coherent scattering/forward diffraction instrument for sub-micron samples covering the “tender” X-ray range (loosely defined to be between the Si K edge of 1.8 keV and the Fe K edge of 7.1 keV).
