Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory upgrades Advanced Light Source for quantum research

The Advanced Light Source (ALS) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is undergoing a major multi-year upgrade aimed at completion by 2029. The project intends to produce soft X-rays that are at least 100 times brighter than current capabilities, providing researchers with unprecedented precision to study materials at the atomic and nanoscale.

This upgrade is designed to support the next era of discovery in quantum materials science, microelectronics, and superconductivity. By enabling X-ray beams to be focused to less than 25 nanometers, the facility will allow scientists to observe exotic quantum states and electron behavior as they evolve in real-time. New instrumentation, such as the FLEXON instrument using X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy (XPCS), will help measure nanosecond fluctuations in charge and spin.

Since 1993, the ALS has been a critical resource for the global scientific community, contributing to foundational work for five Nobel prizes. The upgrade addresses the performance limits of the current facility to meet the growing demand for research into quantum computing, energy storage, and pharmaceuticals as traditional silicon-based electronics approach their physical limits.