Abstract
Optical-domain transient grating (TG) spectroscopy is a versatile background-free four-wave-mixing technique that is used to probe vibrational, magnetic and electronic degrees of freedom in the time domain1. The newly developed coherent X-ray free-electron laser sources allow its extension to the X-ray regime. X-rays offer multiple advantages for TG: their large penetration depth allows probing the bulk properties of materials, their element specificity can address core excited states, and their short wavelengths create excitation gratings with unprecedented momentum transfer and spatial resolution. Here, we demonstrate TG excitation in the hard X-ray range at 7.1 keV. In bismuth germanate (BGO), the non-resonant TG excitation generates coherent optical phonons detected as a function of time by diffraction of an optical probe pulse. This experiment demonstrates the ability to probe bulk properties of materials and paves the way for ultrafast coherent four-wave-mixing techniques using X-ray probes and involving nanoscale TG spatial periods.
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Data availability
The raw data used in this study are available from the corresponding authors upon request.
Change history
11 May 2021
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-021-00826-7
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Acknowledgements
This study was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF, grant no. 200021_165550/1), the SNSF research instrument NCCR Molecular Ultrafast Science and Technology (NCCR MUST, grants 51NF40-183615 and 200021_169017), the ERC Grant ‘DYNAMOX’ (ERC-2015-AdG-694097) and the EU-H2020 Research and Innovation Programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreements (701647, 654360 NFFA-Europe, 801459-FP-RESOMUS and 871124 Laserlab-Europe). The contribution of the MIT participants A.A.M. and K.A.N. was supported by the US Department of Energy award DE-SC0019126. We thank M. Dzambegovic for the graphical rendering of Fig. 1a.
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C.S. conceptualized the framework of the experiment. J.R.R. and C.S. designed the experiment. G.S. and C.D. fabricated the diamond gratings. B.R. carried out the optical microscopy of the static printed gratings. All members of the team participated in the experiment and were involved in the discussions. J.R.R., D.F. and E.F. carried out the data reduction. J.R.R., D.F. and C.S. performed the data analysis. C.S., J.R.R. and D.F. wrote the manuscript.
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Rouxel, J.R., Fainozzi, D., Mankowsky, R. et al. Hard X-ray transient grating spectroscopy on bismuth germanate. Nat. Photon. 15, 499–503 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-021-00797-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-021-00797-9
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