Journal Article

Towards simultaneous measurements of electronic and structural properties in ultra-fast x-ray free electron laser absorption spectroscopy experiments

Nakatsutsumi, M., Lee, H. J., Störmer, M., Engelhorn, K., Leguay, P. M., Dorchies, F., Fourment, C., Heimann, P. A., Gaudin, J., Toleikis, S., Cho, B. I., Nagler, B., Tschentscher, Th, Galtier, E., Ozkan, C., Harmand, M.

2014

Overview

The rapidly growing ultrafast science with X-ray lasers unveils atomic scale processes with unprecedented time resolution bringing the so called “molecular movie” within reach. X-ray absorption spectroscopy is one of the most powerful x-ray techniques providing both local atomic order and electronic structure when coupled with ad-hoc theory. Collecting absorption spectra within few x-ray pulses is possible only in a dispersive setup. We demonstrate ultrafast time-resolved measurements of the LIII-edge x-ray absorption near-edge spectra of irreversibly laser excited Molybdenum using an average of only few x-ray pulses with a signal to noise ratio limited only by the saturation level of the detector. The simplicity of the experimental set-up makes this technique versatile and applicable for a wide range of pump-probe experiments, particularly in the case of non-reversible processes.

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
• Subject: ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS