Welcome to the Falcone Research group at the Department of Physics at the University of California, Berkeley. The natural world is a dynamic place, and our research is concerned with measuring and controlling dynamics on the length and time scales of atomic and molecular motion (nanometers and femtoseconds, and shorter). We focus on the study of ultrafast phenomena in condensed matter, molecular, and atomic physics. Typically, we initiate dynamics by depositing energy with short-duration laser pulses, and then probe the resulting excited material using time-resolved x-ray scattering techniques.

Some of our recent experiments have looked at non-thermal melting of solids, the transient short-range structure of water, bonding in high-temperature silicon and carbon, bond changes in excited-state molecules, and dynamics of coherent phonons. We also develop new technologies related to ultrafast lasers, x-ray sources, and x-ray detectors.

Streak camera image of a single 60-picosecond x-ray pulse.

Much of our recent work has been conducted at Beamline 5.3.1 at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) synchrotron, and will continue at the new (Beamline 6.0), scheduled to be running in 2005. We have also worked on experiments at the Sub-Picosecond Pulsed Source (SPPS), at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), and are planning experiments for the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) x-ray laser. You can often find us inside the ALS, above the Berkeley campus.