The synchrotron ring accelerator at the Berkeley Lab. Accelerating particles almost to light speed, the synchrotron is off-limits while it’s running and can’t usually be observed.

To visit the Lawrence Berkeley Lab: Located in the Berkeley hills above campus, LBL conducts several tours each month. Tours start at 10 a.m. at the Berkeley BART station and last about 2½ hours. To request a tour, visit www.lbl.gov/ Community/ tours.html or call (510) 486-7292. Reservations should be made at least two weeks in advance. Typically, a tour includes visits to two or three research areas. Photography is allowed in most labs, and wearing comfortable footwear is advised.

Tour participants may be asked for photo ID and citizenship information. The Berkeley Lab is not associated with the Lawrence Livermore Lab and conducts no classified or weapons research.

lines have been used for X-ray microscopy; one early work of hexagonal nanotubes that form when enough achievement was viewing the malaria parasite inside a metal is absorbed by the crystal’s surface layers. red blood cell. Others are used in nanostudies and for Before leaving Building 72 we visited Andreas superconductors, aiding research in microelectronics. Schmid, who works with a low-energy electron

The tour moved on to the National Center for microscope, or LEEM. Other electron microscopes Electron Microscopy (Building 72), which houses focus 100,000 volts to such a small density “that the rocket-like Atomic Resolution Microscope — the it’s surprising the sample doesn’t just disappear,” most powerful electron microscope in the world Schmid said. “The power density is 10 times higher when it was unveiled in the mid-80s. It is “the ma- than the 192 lasers used for nuclear fusion!” But chine around which this place was built,” Preuss said. the LEEM is different; it hits the sample with a trillion

We dropped in on Erdmann Spiecker, a visiting times less energy. It’s used to record images of the top scientist from Germany’s University of Kiel. Using an few atomic layers, ideal for exploring the fabrication ultra-powerful scanning electron microscope, Kiel of computer chips and circuits. “If you want to make a discovered a new way to form complex networks of better hard disk,” Schmid said, “just come here.” nanotubes by depositing metals on the surface of layered crystals. The Berkeley Lab proved that what were once thought to be cracks are actually a net-

Michael Shapiro is the author of A Sense of Place: Great Travel Writers Talk About Their Craft, Lives, and Inspiration.