Organic nitrogen compounds are essential to life on Earth, but on Earth most of these compounds are made by life itself. Saturn’s moon Titan, like Earth, has a nitrogen-rich atmosphere. Researchers using the Advanced Light Source have modeled conditions on Titan and found clues to how life may have gotten a kick-start here and (who knows?) maybe there as well.

Can single-shot imaging with femtosecond x-ray pulses from powerful new free electron lasers really work, or will the beam damage the sample too quickly? Pulse length is the key. A new study reveals that “frustrated absorption” explains why ultrashort pulses, even if their peak power is greater, do less damage to molecules than longer pulses.

The energy bands of complex particles known as plasmarons have been seen for the first time by scientists working with graphene at the Advanced Light Source. Their discovery may hasten the day when these crystalline sheets of carbon just one atom thick can be used to build ultrafast computers and other electronic, photonic, and plasmonic devices on the nanoscale.

Doing away with lenses is the secret to very high resolution images of the internal structures of biological specimens and complex materials. To prove the principle, the best such images yet of whole cells have been achieved using a beam of coherent soft x-rays at the Advanced Light Source’s beamline 9.0.1.

Understanding how to create artificial photosynthesis, or tough, flexible high-temperature superconductors, or better solar cells, or a myriad other advances, will only be possible when we have the ability to image electrons by freezing time within a few quintillionths of a second. A leader in attosecond science tells how it’s done.

A team of scientists working at the Advanced Light Source’s femtosecond beamline 6.0.2 have taken the first step toward controlling how matter interacts with x-rays, shaping x-ray pulses with other x-ray pulses, and eventually directing the paths chemical reactions can take.

Part Three of a five-part series outlining the proposals awarded “Discovery” Laboratory Research and Development funds for 2010. This part describes a search for a fundamental property of electrons that’s never been seen before.

The “Discovery” track of Berkeley Lab’s Laboratory Directed Research and Development proposal review encourages bold, highly innovative concepts with strong potential for impact in their fields, independent of divisional programs and lab-wide initiatives. The winning proposals for 2010 are described in a five-part series, beginning with research for a new way to deposit high-quality, transparent, metal-oxide films on the industrial scale, with implications for energy applications.

The structure of a protein that helps relay electrical pulses between neurons has been fully mapped using the Advanced Light Source. This much-anticipated milestone could lead to new treatments for neurological diseases and a better understanding of how the nervous system works.

From their humble beginnings as offshoots of the ordinary electric light bulb, particle accelerators have evolved in surprising directions. Among the most productive and promising developments have been light sources, first in the form of electron storage rings — of which the Advanced Light Source is the world’s premier source of soft x-rays — and increasingly as versatile and sophisticated free electron lasers, the next generation of light sources now being studied at Berkeley Lab.