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Achieving few-femtosecond time-sorting at hard X-ray free-electron lasers

Nature Photonics volume 7, pages 215–218 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

Recently, few-femtosecond pulses have become available at hard X-ray free-electron lasers. Coupled with the available sub-10 fs optical pulses, investigations into few-femtosecond dynamics are not far off. However, achieving sufficient synchronization between optical lasers and X-ray pulses continues to be challenging. We report a ‘measure-and-sort’ approach, which achieves sub-10 fs root-mean-squared (r.m.s.) error measurement at hard X-ray FELs, far beyond the 100–200 fs r.m.s. jitter limitations. This timing diagnostic, now routinely available at the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), is based on ultrafast free-carrier generation in optically transparent materials. Correlation between two independent measurements enables unambiguous demonstration of ∼6 fs r.m.s. error in reporting the optical/X-ray delay, with single shot error suggesting the possibility of reaching few-femtosecond resolution.

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Figure 1: Sketch of the experimental set-up.
Figure 2: Single shot measurement on Si3N4 membrane.
Figure 3: Correlation of spectral and spatial encoding timing tools.
Figure 4: Optically excited coherent A1g phonon mode of bismuth.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge important scientific input from H-J. Lee, B. Nagler and E. Galtier. The authors also thank DESY and LCLS technicians for their support. This research was carried out at LCLS at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. LCLS is an Office of Science User Facility operated for the US Department of Energy Office of Science by Stanford University.

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Author notes

  1. M. Harmand

    Present address: Present address: LULI, Ecole polytechnique, CNRS, CEA, UPMC, route de Saclay, 91128 Palaiseau, France,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Hamburg, Germany

    M. Harmand & S. Toleikis

  2. LCLS, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California, USA

    R. Coffee, M. R. Bionta, M. Chollet, D. French, D. Zhu, D. M. Fritz & H. T. Lemke

  3. CNRS-Université de Toulouse, Université Paul Sabatier, Laboratoire Collisions, Agrégats Réactivité, Institut de Recherche sur les Systémes Atomiques et Moléculaires Complexes, Toulouse, F-31062, France

    M. R. Bionta

  4. Center for Free Electron Laser Science, DESY, Hamburg, Germany

    N. Medvedev & B. Ziaja

  5. Institute of Nuclear Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakow, Poland

    B. Ziaja

  6. Institut de Physique de Rennes, UMR UR1-CNRS 6251, Université de Rennes 1, Rennes, F35042, France

    M. Cammarata

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Contributions

M.H. and M.Ca. designed the research. R.C. proposed the addition of the spectral encoding timing tool. M.H., M.Ca., R.C., M.R.B., D.F., M.Ch., D.Z., D.M.F., S.T. and H.T.L. set up the experiment and performed data collection. M.Ca. performed data analysis. N.M. and B.Z. performed non-equilibrium Monte Carlo simulations. M.H. and M.Ca. wrote the paper, with extensive suggestions from R.C., M.R.B. and N.M. and contributions from all other authors.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to M. Harmand or M. Cammarata.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Harmand, M., Coffee, R., Bionta, M. et al. Achieving few-femtosecond time-sorting at hard X-ray free-electron lasers. Nature Photon 7, 215–218 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2013.11

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