Capturing nanoscale fireworks

Gorkhover, Tais; Küpper, Jochen; Bostedt, Christoph

Contribution to a book

PUBDB-2017-11840

Capturing nanoscale fireworks

Gorkhover, T.Extern* ; Bostedt, C.Extern* ; Küpper, J.CFEL*DESY*

2017
Verlag Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron Hamburg Hamburg
ISBN: 978-3-945931-09-7

Photon Science 2016 - Highlights and Annual Report (ISBN 978-3-945931-09-7) Hamburg : Verlag Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron Hamburg 2 pp. (2017) [10.3204/PUBDB-2017-11840]

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Please use a persistent id in citations: doi:10.3204/PUBDB-2017-11840

Abstract: Surfaces, thin films and interfacesFigure 1X-ray diffraction patterns of pristine and pre-heated xenon clusters. The top panel shows diffraction from a pristine spherical cluster. Shown below are the diffraction patterns produced 250 fs (middle) and 500 fs (bottom) after the exciting NIR pulse.Many ultrafast non-equilibrium phenomena such as chemical reactions, phase transitions and light-matter interactions, remain uncharted due to the lack of imaging methods combining high spatial and temporal resolutions. X-ray free-electron lasers (FELs) with intense, femtosecond flashes open up unprecedented opportunities to resolve complex ultrafast dynamics even in isolated nanosized samples. We superheated single xenon nanoclusters using an intense infrared pulse and imaged the following expansion with single X-ray FEL pulses. Thereby, we resolved nanometre-scale surface softening within 100 fs of the heating pulse. Our study is the first time-resolved visualisation of irreversible femtosecond processes in free, individual nanometre-sized samples.

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