TY - JOUR
T1 - Following the Birth of a Nanoplasma Produced by an Ultrashort Hard-X-Ray Laser in Xenon Clusters
AU - Kumagai, Yoshiaki
AU - Fukuzawa, Hironobu
AU - Motomura, Koji
AU - Iablonskyi, Denys
AU - Nagaya, Kiyonobu
AU - Wada, Shin Ichi
AU - Ito, Yuta
AU - Takanashi, Tsukasa
AU - Sakakibara, Yuta
AU - You, Daehyun
AU - Nishiyama, Toshiyuki
AU - Asa, Kazuki
AU - Sato, Yuhiro
AU - Umemoto, Takayuki
AU - Kariyazono, Kango
AU - Kukk, Edwin
AU - Kooser, Kuno
AU - Nicolas, Christophe
AU - Miron, Catalin
AU - Asavei, Theodor
AU - Neagu, Liviu
AU - Schöffler, Markus S.
AU - Kastirke, Gregor
AU - Liu, Xiao Jing
AU - Owada, Shigeki
AU - Katayama, Tetsuo
AU - Togashi, Tadashi
AU - Tono, Kensuke
AU - Yabashi, Makina
AU - Golubev, Nikolay V.
AU - Gokhberg, Kirill
AU - Cederbaum, Lorenz S.
AU - Kuleff, Alexander I.
AU - Ueda, Kiyoshi
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 authors. Published by the American Physical Society.
PY - 2018/8/2
Y1 - 2018/8/2
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85051511629
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85051511629#tab=citedBy
U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevX.8.031034
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevX.8.031034
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85051511629
SN - 2160-3308
VL - 8
JO - Physical Review X
JF - Physical Review X
IS - 3
M1 - 031034
ER -