Diling Zhu

Bio

Diling Zhu is currently the Deputy Division Director for the Science, Research and Development (SRD) Division at the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. He is also serving as the LCLS Photon Science R&D program lead, and as one of the Lead Instrument Scientists for the LCLS-II HE upgrade project.

D. Zhu received a Bachelor degree in Physics and Mathematics from Tsinghua University in 2005. He obtained his PhD in Applied Physics from Stanford University in 2010. He was part of the commissioning team for one of the first soft x-ray instruments during his last graduate school years, and joined the XPP instrument when it came online as the world’s first hard x-ray laser instrument in 2010. Zhu led the operation of the XPP instrument through 2022. He was appointed as the LCLS Photon Science R&D program lead since 2016, managing a project portfolio spanning key instrumentation development areas such as x-ray optics, diagnostics, optical laser systems, sample delivery.

Diling Zhu ’s research interest spans x-ray imaging, ultrafast spectroscopy, and in particular the instrumentation development and application for coherent x-ray laser pulses. A few examples are ultrafast x-ray pump-probe methodology development, x-ray delayline and photon correlation spectroscopy development, x-ray laser optics and diagnostics. He is currently co-leading the project in developing the next generation x-ray free electron laser concept that will introduce a beam recirculating cavity into the system, aiming at further enhancing source brightness by 2-3 orders of magnitude.

Education & Certifications

• BS, Tsinghua University, Physics and Mathematics (2005)
• PhD, Stanford University, Applied Physics (2010)