Following the Birth of a Nanoplasma Produced by an Ultrashort Hard-X-Ray Laser in Xenon Clusters
,
,
,
,
,
(1)
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
(2)
,
(2, 3)
,
(4)
,
(5)
,
,
,
,
(6)
,
,
,
(6)
,
(6)
,
,
(7)
,
(7)
,
(7)
,
(8)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Yoshiaki Kumagai
- Function : Author
Hironobu Fukuzawa
- Function : Author
- PersonId : 792708
- ORCID : 0000-0002-8283-381X
Koji Motomura
- Function : Author
Denys Iablonskyi
- Function : Author
Kiyonobu Nagaya
- Function : Author
Yuta Ito
- Function : Author
Tsukasa Takanashi
- Function : Author
Yuta Sakakibara
- Function : Author
Daehyun You
- Function : Author
Toshiyuki Nishiyama
- Function : Author
Kazuki Asa
- Function : Author
Yuhiro Sato
- Function : Author
Takayuki Umemoto
- Function : Author
Kango Kariyazono
- Function : Author
Edwin Kukk
- Function : Author
Kuno Kooser
- Function : Author
Catalin Miron
- Function : Author
- PersonId : 1222468
- IdHAL : catalinmiron
- ORCID : 0000-0002-8302-7158
- IdRef : 193121875
Markus Schöffler
- Function : Author
Gregor Kastirke
- Function : Author
Xiao-Jing Liu
- Function : Author
Shigeki Owada
- Function : Author
- PersonId : 780427
- ORCID : 0000-0002-1451-7612
Tetsuo Katayama
- Function : Author
Tadashi Togashi
- Function : Author
Kensuke Tono
- Function : Author
- PersonId : 780426
- ORCID : 0000-0003-1218-3759
Makina Yabashi
- Function : Author
- PersonId : 763945
- ORCID : 0000-0002-2472-1684
Nikolay Golubev
- Function : Author
Abstract
X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) made available a new regime of x-ray intensities, revolutionizing the
ultrafast structure determination and laying the foundations of the novel field of nonlinear x-ray optics.
Although earlier studies revealed nanoplasma formation when an XFEL pulse interacts with any
nanometer-scale matter, the formation process itself has never been decrypted and its timescale was
unknown. Here we show that time-resolved ion yield measurements combined with a near-infrared laser
probe reveal a surprisingly ultrafast population (∼12 fs), followed by a slower depopulation (∼250 fs) of
highly excited states of atomic fragments generated in the process of XFEL-induced nanoplasma
formation. Inelastic scattering of Auger electrons and interatomic Coulombic decay are suggested as
the mechanisms populating and depopulating, respectively, these excited states. The observed response
occurs within the typical x-ray pulse durations and affects x-ray scattering, thus providing key information
on the foundations of x-ray imaging with XFELs.