Sunset Over SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Past Events

Listed below are all past events

Past Events

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Out-of-equilibrium systems preserve memories of their formation and training history in a variety of ways allowing for an innovative classification of material and dynamics. I will discuss one case where a cyclically sheared suspension of particles or a charge-density-wave solid...
Sidney Nagel, Stein-Freiler Distinguished Service Professor, The James Franck Institute, The Enrico Fermi Institute, and the Department of Physics, The University of Chicago
Jan23
The James Webb Space Telescope was launched on Dec. 25, 2021, and commissioning was completed in early July 2022. With its 6.5 m golden eye, and cameras and spectrometers covering 0.6 to 28 µm, Webb is already producing magnificent images...
John Mather, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Nov14
The nature and origin of dark matter are among the most compelling mysteries of contemporary science. There is strong evidence for dark matter from its role in shaping the galaxies and galaxy clusters that we observe in the universe. For...
Maria Elena Monzani, Tomasz Biesiadzinski, and Alden Fan, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Aug1
The magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ), a device comprised of two ferromagnetic electrodes with a thin (~1nm) insulating tunnel barrier in between, was first proposed in a Ph.D. thesis by Michel Jullière in 1975 and reached widespread commercialization nearly 30 years...
Dr. Tiffany S. Santos, Western Digital Corporation; 2022 IEEE Magnetics Society Distinguished Lecturer
Jun6
Earthquakes occur by overcoming fault friction, and therefore quantifying the resistance of faults is central to earthquake physics. Both static and dynamic friction values are required, and the latter is especially difficult to determine on natural faults. Perhaps the only...
Prof. Emily Brodsky, University of California / Santa Cruz
May23
Between 1967 and 1976, experiments at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (and elsewhere) demonstrated the existence of fundamental particles known as quarks inside protons, neutrons, and other hadrons. I describe the key SLAC experiments and the related theoretical advances that...
Dr. Michael Riordan, Univ. of California / Santa Cruz
May16
The launch and deployment of the James Webb Space Telescope went flawlessly. The telescope and instruments began cooling as soon as the sun shield was deployed, and once the temperature of the short wavelength detectors in NIRCam dropped below 120...
Marcia Rieke, University of Arizona
Apr4
Electron transfer and charge transport are most elementary processes in liquid and solid condensed matter. Both femtosecond spectroscopy and structure-resolving x-ray methods give insight in electron dynamics at atomic length and time scales. This talk focuses on many-body dynamics of...
Thomas Elsaesser, Max-Born-Institute
Mar14
Strong winds in Southern Ocean storms drive air-sea carbon and heat fluxes and these fluxes are integral to the global climate system. Evidence from a range of sources indicates that the wind speeds that drive these fluxes are increasing. We...
Joellen Russell, University of Arizona
Mar7