Ultrafast Structural Dynamics of Nanoparticles in Intense Laser Fields

Toshiyuki Nishiyama (1) , Yoshiaki Kumagai (2) , Akinobu Niozu (1, 3) , Hironobu Fukuzawa (2, 4) , Koji Motomura (2) , Maximilian Bucher (5) , Yuta Ito (2) , Tsukasa Takanashi (2) , Kazuki Asa (1) , Yuhiro Sato (1) , Daehyun You (2) , Yiwen Li (2) , Taishi Ono (2) , Edwin Kukk (6) , Catalin Miron (7, 8) , Liviu P. Neagu (8) , Carlo Callegari (9) , Michele Di Fraia (9) , Giorgio Rossi (10) , Davide Galli (10) , Tommaso Pincelli (10) , Alessandro Colombo (10) , Takashi Kameshima (11) , Yasumasa Joti (11) , Takaki Hatsui (3) , Shigeki Owada (3) , Tetsuo Katayama (11) , Tadashi Togashi (11) , Kensuke Tono (3) , Makina Yabashi (3) , Kazuhiro Matsuda , Christoph Bostedt (5) , Kiyonobu Nagaya (3) , Kiyoshi Ueda (3, 2)

1 Kyoto University
2 Tohoku University [Sendai]
3 RIKEN - RIKEN - Institute of Physical and Chemical Research [Japon]
4 RIKEN - Environmental Molecular Biology Laboratory
5 ANL - Argonne National Laboratory [Lemont]
6 University of Turku
7 LIDyl - Laboratoire Interactions, Dynamiques et Lasers (ex SPAM)
8 Extreme Light Infrastructure
9 Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste
10 Dipartimento di Fisica (Milano)
11 JASRI - Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute [Hyogo]

Femtosecond laser pulses have opened new frontiers for the study of ultrafast phase transitions and nonequilibrium states of matter. In this Letter, we report on structural dynamics in atomic clusters pumped with intense near-infrared (NIR) pulses into a nanoplasma state. Employing wide-angle scattering with intense femtosecond x-ray pulses from a free-electron laser source, we find that highly excited xenon nanoparticles retain their crystalline bulk structure and density in the inner core long after the driving NIR pulse. The observed emergence of structural disorder in the nanoplasma is consistent with a propagation from the surface to the inner core of the clusters.

Domains: Theoretical and/or physical chemistry; Mechanics of materials [physics.class-ph]; Chemical Physics [physics.chem-ph]

Toshiyuki Nishiyama, Yoshiaki Kumagai, Akinobu Niozu, Hironobu Fukuzawa, Koji Motomura, et al.. Ultrafast Structural Dynamics of Nanoparticles in Intense Laser Fields. Physical Review Letters, 2019, 123 (12), ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.123201⟩. ⟨cea-02301137⟩