Fundamental research today is like building a racing car. The more you spend on the mechanics, and the infrastructure, the more you spend on tools, the better research you’ll be able to do. That’s the first thought that comes to my mind as I stand next to SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory’s 2-mile-long linear accelerator.
Being a geek of the first order, I’m quite chuffed I’m here. For SLAC is physics history itself. Like the AI race today, in the 1960s, the USA was racing to discover linear particles. After WWII was over and scientists had developed an atomic bomb, physicists at Stanford wanted to get a better look into the atom. They pitched an idea of a linear accelerator to the Atomic Energy Commission and got permission to build it in 1964. Project M, affectionately known as “the Monster” was approved and built in the rolling hills west of Stanford University on a 426-acre property. At 2 miles, this was the longest and straightest structure for electron collision. Scientists used the monster to accelerate electrons at nearly the speed of light to create, identify and study subatomic particles.
And identify it did. In 1967, a team of SLAC and MIT scientists probed a nucleus of hydrogen and deuterium atoms using electron beams. They noticed electrons scattering off “hard grains” in the centres of the protons and neutrons. This was the first actual recording of quarks which we now know as fundamental blocks of all matter. For this, the scientists received a Nobel Prize in physics. Another Nobel went to Martin Perl when he discovered the tau lepton, a particle 3,500 times more massive than its cousin, the electron. The third in physics came for revealing the quark structure in 1995.
While everyone was focused on breaking down molecules and digging deeper into molecules, a few scientists at SLAC started to build small hutches on the accelerator to experiment with a side product of all those electrons running through an accelerator – x-rays. The idea was to use the x-rays to study materials. Soon though, they realised that it could be a new tool to see inside particles.
By the 2000s, the laboratory decided to move from electron laser to x-ray laser that would use the lab’s existing 2-mile-long linear accelerator facility. It would produce a high-energy electron beam. A series of magnets would force these electrons to wiggle. This wiggling would release energy in the form of X-ray light beams which would allow scientists to study atomic and molecular systems that had never been observed before.
In the 1970s, the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) was launched. In April 2009, Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) was powered up for the first time to take X-ray snapshots of atoms and molecules. Since then, the lab has hosted thousands of scientists to do imaging – from observing single living cells in viruses to determining the structures of fragile proteins to making movies of chemical reactions down the molecular level.
Last year, LCLS was upgraded to generate more powerful X-ray light. LCLS 2 takes around a million X-ray flashes per second and is 10000 times brighter. The machine can be used to study ultrafast phenomena at an atomic scale – to research deeper into quantum materials, clean energy and medicine.
Using it in the next decade, scientists will be able to examine details of quantum materials, drive new forms of communications and computing, reveal unpredictable chemical events, and figure out how biological molecules carry out life’s function.
I walk out after checking out the LCLS 2, dazed. It’s an amazing tool – a technological feat for humans to have created, to study the minute physical interactions of molecules. And that’s not all. SLAC has already installed a 3200-megapixel camera in Chile. Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), as it is called, will take multiple photos of deep space over 10 years to study dark energy that is driving the accelerating expansion of the universe and dark matter, the mysterious substance that makes up about 85% of the universe.
Located in the dark Rubin Observatory in Chile, it’s supposed to create the most informative map of the night sky ever. While cataloguing the night-sky objects for researchers, the LSST Camera will also look for signs of weak gravitational lensing in which massive galaxies subtly bend the paths of lights from background galaxies take to reach us. Weak lensing will reveal more about the distribution of mass in the universe and how it has changed over time. Within a year, as this machine becomes active, we will be able to discover new things about dark matter and dark energy.
SLAC shows why developed countries continue to excel in cutting-edge technology and science. Like the racing car, it’s both investment and imagination. Each new tool that’s built pushes scientific research forward. From probing deeper into the minutest interactions of chemistry and biology to being able to observe dark matter far away. And each of these tools costs millions of dollars to build. SLAC uses 1/3rd of Palo Alto’s energy. That’s millions of dollars in energy bills every year to produce high-powered X-rays for research. In 2019, the laboratory operating costs were $541.5 million dollars. Spending that much, on a single laboratory to do research, is a marvel in itself.
Shweta Taneja is an author and journalist based in the Bay Area. Her fortnightly column will reflect on how emerging tech and science is reshaping society in the Silicon Valley and beyond. Find her online with @shwetawrites. The views expressed are personal.
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Deepak Sen is a tech enthusiast who covers the latest technological innovations, from AI to consumer gadgets. His articles provide readers with a glimpse into the ever-evolving world of technology.
