2019/06/25 by Joseph Duris, Siqi Li, Taran Driver +31 · 4 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #physics.optics #physics.acc-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/s41566-019-0549-5
published as Duris, J., Li, S., Driver, T. et al. Nat. Photonics 14, 30-36 (2020)
arxiv created 2019/06/25 · arxiv updated 2020/01/08
The quantum mechanical motion of electrons in molecules and solids occurs on the sub-femtosecond timescale. Consequently, the study of ultrafast electronic phenomena requires the generation of laser pulses shorter than 1 fs and of sufficient intensity to interact with their target with high probability. Probing these dynamics with atomic-site specificity requires the extension of sub-femtosecond pulses to the soft X-ray spectral region. Here we report the generation of isolated GW-scale soft X-ray attosecond pulses with an X-ray free-electron laser. Our source has a pulse energy that is six orders of magnitude larger than any other source of isolated attosecond pulses in the soft X-ray spectral region, with a peak power in the tens of gigawatts. This unique combination of high intensity, high photon energy and short pulse duration enables the investigation of electron dynamics with X-ray non-linear spectroscopy and single-particle imaging.