Journal Article

Femtosecond and nanometre visualization of structural dynamics in superheated nanoparticles

Gorkhover, Tais, Strüder, Lothar, Rudenko, Artem, Hartmann, Robert, Bozek, John D., Rudek, Benedikt, White, Bill, Foucar, Lutz, Schmidt, Carlo, Ullrich, Joachim, Schorb, Sebastian, Adolph, Marcus, Schlichting, Ilme, Hömke, Andre, Johnsson, Per, Rouzée, Arnaud, Reich, Christian, Gumprecht, Lars, Küpper, Jochen, Rupp, Daniela, Weidenspointner, Georg, Erk, Benjamin, Aquila, Andrew, Kimmel, Nils, Bostedt, Christoph, Coffee, Ryan, Hartmann, Andreas, Rolles, Daniel, Messerschmidt, Marc, Schulz, Joachim, Stern, Stephan, Möller, Thomas, Epp, Sascha W., Soltau, Heike, Kühnel, Kai-Uwe, Holmegaard, Lotte, Hauser, Günter, Holl, Peter

2016

Overview

Single Xe clusters are superheated using an intense optical laser pulse and the structural evolution is imaged with a single X-ray pulse. Ultrafast surface softening on the nanometre scale is resolved within 100 fs at the vacuum/sample interface. The ability to observe ultrafast structural changes in nanoscopic samples is essential for understanding non-equilibrium phenomena such as chemical reactions 1 , matter under extreme conditions 2 , ultrafast phase transitions 3 and intense light–matter interactions 4 . Established imaging techniques are limited either in time or spatial resolution and typically require samples to be deposited on a substrate, which interferes with the dynamics. Here, we show that coherent X-ray diffraction images from isolated single samples can be used to visualize femtosecond electron density dynamics. We recorded X-ray snapshot images from a nanoplasma expansion, a prototypical non-equilibrium phenomenon 4 , 5 . Single Xe clusters are superheated using an intense optical laser pulse and the structural evolution of the sample is imaged with a single X-ray pulse. We resolved ultrafast surface softening on the nanometre scale at the plasma/vacuum interface within 100 fs of the heating pulse. Our study is the first time-resolved visualization of irreversible femtosecond processes in free, individual nanometre-sized samples.

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Publishing Group
• Subject: 639/766/1960/1135 / 639/766/36 / 639/766/930/2735 / Applied and Technical Physics / Atom and Molecular Physics and Optics / Atom- och molekylfysik och optik (Här ingår: Kemisk fysik, kvantoptik) / Chemical reactions / Dynamics / Femtosecond / Fysik / Heating / letter / Nanostructure / Natural Sciences / Naturvetenskap / Physical Sciences / Physics / Quantum Physics / Softening / Visualization / X-ray diffraction / X-rays