%0 Journal Article
%A Huang, Lingen
%A Šmíd, Michal
%A Yang, Long
%A Humphries, Oliver
%A Hagemann, Johannes
%A Engler, Thea
%A Pan, Xiayun
%A Cui, Yangzhe
%A Kluge, Thomas
%A Aguilar, Ritz
%A Baehtz, Carsten
%A Brambrink, Erik
%A Eren, Engin
%A Falk, Katerina
%A Laso Garcia, Alejandro
%A Göde, Sebastian
%A Gutt, Christian
%A Hassan, Mohamed
%A Heuser, Philipp
%A Höppner, Hauke
%A Kozlova, Michaela
%A Lu, Wei
%A Metzkes-Ng, Josefine
%A Masruri, Masruri
%A Mishchenko, Mikhail
%A Nakatsutsumi, Motoaki
%A Ota, Masato
%A Öztürk, Özgül
%A Pelka, Alexander
%A Prencipe, Irene
%A Preston, Thomas R.
%A Randolph, Lisa
%A Rehwald, Martin
%A Schlenvoigt, Hans-Peter
%A Schramm, Ulrich
%A Schwinkendorf, Jan-Patrick
%A Starke, Sebastian
%A Štefaníková, Radka
%A Thiessenhusen, Erik
%A Toncian, Monika
%A Toncian, Toma
%A Vorberger, Jan
%A Zastrau, Ulf
%A Zeil, Karl
%A Cowan, Thomas E.
%T Demonstration of full-scale spatiotemporal diagnostics of solid-density plasmas driven by an ultra-short relativistic laser pulse using an X-ray free-electron laser
%J Matter and radiation at extremes
%V 11
%N 1
%@ 2468-080X
%C Melville, NY
%I AIP Publishing
%M PUBDB-2025-04696
%P 017201
%D 2026
%X Understanding the complex plasma dynamics in ultra-intense relativistic laser–solid interactions is of fundamental importance for applications of laser–plasma-based particle accelerators, the creation of high-energy-density matter, understanding planetary science, and laser-driven fusion energy. However, experimental efforts in this regime have been limited by the lack of accessibility of over-critical densities and the poor spatiotemporal resolution of conventional diagnostics. Over the last decade, the advent of femtosecond brilliant hard X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) has opened new horizons to overcome these limitations. Here, for the first time, we present full-scale spatiotemporal measurements of solid-density plasma dynamics, including preplasma generation with tens of nanometer scale length driven by the leading edge of a relativistic laser pulse, ultrafast heating and ionization at the main pulse arrival, the laser-driven blast wave, and transient surface return current-induced compression dynamics up to hundreds of picoseconds after interaction. These observations are enabled by utilizing a novel combination of advanced X-ray diagnostics including small-angle X-ray scattering, resonant X-ray emission spectroscopy, and propagation-based X-ray phase-contrast imaging simultaneously at the European XFEL-HED beamline station.
%F PUB:(DE-HGF)16
%9 Journal Article
%R 10.1063/5.0279974
%U https://bib-pubdb1.desy.de/record/639993