New method of studying environmental toxins

In 1986, Gordon Brown used SLAC's Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) to visualize something no one had ever seen before: the exact way that atoms bond to a solid surface. The work stemmed from a eureka moment that Brown had during the doctoral defense of graduate student Kim Hayes but has since grown into one of the seminal works in inorganic geochemistry, and even spawned a new field of study—molecular environmental science.