Removing all electrons from neon by X-ray laser

At Stanford's linac coherent light source (LCLS), a great deal of effort has been devoted since April this year to initial scientific tests of an X-ray laser. In September, scientists attempted to strip all ten electrons from an atom of neon. They were able to adjust the proportion of different neon species, from non-ionized Ne (no missing electrons) to Ne¹⁰⁺ (lacking all 10 electrons), by fine-tuning the powerful LCLS X-ray beam. For more information, visit the Web page, http://today.slac.stanford.edu/