Imaging Shock Waves in Diamond with Both High Temporal and Spatial Resolution at an XFEL

Abstract

The advent of hard x-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) has opened up a variety of scientific opportunities in areas as diverse as atomic physics, plasma physics, nonlinear optics in the x-ray range, and protein crystallography. In this article, we access a new field of science by measuring quantitatively the local bulk properties and dynamics of matter under extreme conditions, in this case by using the short XFEL pulse to image an elastic compression wave in diamond. The elastic wave was initiated by an intense optical laser pulse and was imaged at different delay times after the optical pump pulse using magnified x-ray phase-contrast imaging. The temporal evolution of the shock wave can be monitored, yielding detailed information on shock dynamics, such as the shock velocity, the shock front width, and the local compression of the material. The method provides a quantitative perspective on the state of matter in extreme conditions.

Nanofocusing with aberration-corrected rotationally parabolic refractive X-ray lenses

“…Although rapid progress in shape and surface quality has been made, current diamond lenses do not meet the demands of microscopy with nanometer resolution. Despite mechanical limitations of Be CRLs to smallest curvatures of 50 mm, their superior quality allows for high-resolution microscopy when combining several tens of lenses (Schropp et al, 2015;Nagler et al, 2016;Beckwith et al, 2017). While combining many lenses leads to higher NA, it also increases aberrations due to a superposition of small shape errors.…”

Structural Dynamics of Materials under Shock Compression Investigated with Synchrotron Radiation

“…Further experiments at much higher pressures, which can be generated with the high-power laser system, are required to study the dynamics of phase transitions in metals and minerals in connection with geoscience and planetary science. The dynamics at much shorter time scale (<picoseconds) will be also studied by using time-resolved X-ray diffraction with high-power laser facility and much shorter and strong pulses from XFEL [13][14][15] and small-size crystals such as nanocrystals.…”

X-Ray Near-Field Holography: Beyond Idealized Assumptions of the Probe

“…Sharing the characteristic advantages of high penetration and quantitative contrast with other x-ray imaging modalities, it can in addition exploit the advantage of high temporal resolution down to single pulse imaging with synchrotron (SR) and free electron laser (FEL) radiation [128,129]. This is for the simple reason, that a full wavefield can be probed in a single shot without scanning.…”