Abstract
With their brilliance and temporal structure, X-ray free-electron laser can unveil atomic-scale details of ultrafast phenomena. Recent progress in split-and-delay optics (SDO), which produces two X-ray pulses with time-delays, offers bright prospects for observing dynamics at the atomic-scale. However, their insufficient pulse energy has limited its application either to phenomena with longer correlation length or to measurement with a fixed delay-time. Here we show that the combination of the SDO and self-seeding of X-rays increases the pulse energy and makes it possible to observe the atomic-scale dynamics in a timescale of picoseconds. We show that the speckle contrast in scattering from water depends on the delay-time as expected. Our results demonstrate the capability of measurement using the SDO with seeded X-rays for resolving the dynamics in temporal and spatial scales that are not accessible by other techniques, opening opportunities for studying the atomic-level dynamics.
Highlights
With their brilliance and temporal structure, X-ray free-electron laser can unveil atomic-scale details of ultrafast phenomena
In an split-and-delay optics (SDO) system, a single X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) pulse is divided into two pulses by a beam splitter, and a delay time between the pulses is controlled by their path length difference
The increase in the Xray pulse energy at the sample position enables the application of X-ray SVS (XSVS) at high Q (>1 Å−1), which is relevant to the study of atomic-level dynamics
Summary
With their brilliance and temporal structure, X-ray free-electron laser can unveil atomic-scale details of ultrafast phenomena. Recent progress in high-energy-resolution inelastic X-ray and neutron scattering has extended their accessible timescale and its applications[15,16] Their timescale and length-scale are not appropriate for probing the atomic-level dynamics in a wide timescale of picoseconds to nanoseconds due to the limitation in energy resolution and intensity. The advent of X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs)[17,18], together with recent progress in split-and-delay optics (SDO)[19,20], has raised the expectation for bridging the aforementioned gap by extending the timescale of XPCS to picoseconds[21]. The increase in the Xray pulse energy at the sample position enables the application of XSVS at high Q (>1 Å−1), which is relevant to the study of atomic-level dynamics
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