| 1. |
- Lee, J. W.L., et al.
(författare)
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Time-resolved relaxation and fragmentation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons investigated in the ultrafast XUV-IR regime
- 2021
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Ingår i: Nature Communications. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2041-1723. ; 12:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) play an important role in interstellar chemistry and are subject to high energy photons that can induce excitation, ionization, and fragmentation. Previous studies have demonstrated electronic relaxation of parent PAH monocations over 10-100 femtoseconds as a result of beyond-Born-Oppenheimer coupling between the electronic and nuclear dynamics. Here, we investigate three PAH molecules: fluorene, phenanthrene, and pyrene, using ultrafast XUV and IR laser pulses. Simultaneous measurements of the ion yields, ion momenta, and electron momenta as a function of laser pulse delay allow a detailed insight into the various molecular processes. We report relaxation times for the electronically excited PAH*, PAH(+*) and PAH(2+*) states, and show the time-dependent conversion between fragmentation pathways. Additionally, using recoil-frame covariance analysis between ion images, we demonstrate that the dissociation of the PAH(2+) ions favors reaction pathways involving two-body breakup and/or loss of neutral fragments totaling an even number of carbon atoms. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons play an important role in interstellar chemistry, where interaction with high energy photons can induce ionization and fragmentation reactions. Here the authors, with XUV-IR pump-probe experiments, investigate the ultrafast photoinduced dynamics of fluorene, phenanthrene and pyrene, providing insight into their preferred reaction channels.
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| 2. |
- Schönhense, G., et al.
(författare)
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Suppression of the vacuum space-charge effect in fs-photoemission by a retarding electrostatic front lens
- 2021
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Ingår i: Review of Scientific Instruments. - : American Institute of Physics (AIP). - 0034-6748 .- 1089-7623. ; 92:5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The performance of time-resolved photoemission experiments at fs-pulsed photon sources is ultimately limited by the e-e Coulomb interaction, downgrading energy and momentum resolution. Here, we present an approach to effectively suppress space-charge artifacts in momentum microscopes and photoemission microscopes. A retarding electrostatic field generated by a special objective lens repels slow electrons, retaining the k-image of the fast photoelectrons. The suppression of space-charge effects scales with the ratio of the photoelectron velocities of fast and slow electrons. Fields in the range from -20 to -1100 V/mm for E-kin = 100 eV to 4 keV direct secondaries and pump-induced slow electrons back to the sample surface. Ray tracing simulations reveal that this happens within the first 40 to 3 mu m above the sample surface for E-kin = 100 eV to 4 keV. An optimized front-lens design allows switching between the conventional accelerating and the new retarding mode. Time-resolved experiments at E-kin = 107 eV using fs extreme ultraviolet probe pulses from the free-electron laser FLASH reveal that the width of the Fermi edge increases by just 30 meV at an incident pump fluence of 22 mJ/cm(2) (retarding field -21 V/mm). For an accelerating field of +2 kV/mm and a pump fluence of only 5 mJ/cm(2), it increases by 0.5 eV (pump wavelength 1030 nm). At the given conditions, the suppression mode permits increasing the slow-electron yield by three to four orders of magnitude. The feasibility of the method at high energies is demonstrated without a pump beam at E-kin = 3830 eV using hard x rays from the storage ring PETRA III. The approach opens up a previously inaccessible regime of pump fluences for photoemission experiments.
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| 3. |
- Cheng, Yu Chen, et al.
(författare)
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Imaging multiphoton ionization dynamics of CH3I at a high repetition rate XUV free-electron laser
- 2021
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Ingår i: Journal of Physics B-Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics. - : IOP Publishing. - 0953-4075 .- 1361-6455. ; 54:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- XUV multiphoton ionization of molecules is commonly used in free-electron laser experiments to study charge transfer dynamics. However, molecular dissociation and electron dynamics, such as multiple photon absorption, Auger decay, and charge transfer, often happen on competing time scales, and the contributions of individual processes can be difficult to unravel. We experimentally investigate the Coulomb explosion dynamics of methyl iodide upon core-hole ionization of the shallow inner-shell of iodine (4d) and classically simulate the fragmentation by phenomenologically introducing ionization dynamics and charge transfer. Under our experimental conditions with medium fluence and relatively long XUV pulses (similar to 75 fs), we find that fast Auger decay prior to charge transfer significantly contributes to the charging mechanism, leading to a yield enhancement of higher carbon charge states upon molecular dissociation. Furthermore, we argue for the existence of another charging mechanism for the weak fragmentation channels leading to triply charged carbon atoms. This study shows that classical simulations can be a useful tool to guide the quantum mechanical description of the femtosecond dynamics upon multiphoton absorption in molecular systems.
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| 4. |
- Viotti, A. L., et al.
(författare)
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Multi-Pass Cell Post-Compression for Pump-Probe Experiments at the FEL Facility FLASH
- 2021
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Ingår i: Laser Applications Conference, LAC 2021. - 9781557528209
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present high-power Yb:YAG lasers combined with nonlinear pulse compression in multi-pass cells. We show that these are suitable for integration in FEL facilities in terms of pulse stability, jitter, temporal contrast and intra-burst behaviour.
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| 5. |
- Viotti, Anne Lise, et al.
(författare)
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Temporal pulse quality of a Yb:YAG burst-mode laser post-compressed in a multi-pass cell
- 2021
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Ingår i: Optics Letters. - 0146-9592. ; 46:18, s. 4686-4689
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Nonlinear pulse post-compression represents an efficient method for ultrashort, high-quality laser pulse production. The temporal pulse quality is, however, limited by amplitude and phase modulations intrinsic to post-compression. We here characterize in frequency and time domain with high dynamic range individual post-compressed pulses within laser bursts comprising 100-kHz-rate pulse trains. We spectrally broaden 730 fs, 3.2 mJ pulses from a Yb:YAG laser in a gas-filled multi-pass cell and post-compress them to 56 fs. The pulses exhibit a nearly constant energy content of 78% in the main peak over the burst plateau, which is close to the theoretical limit. Our results demonstrate attractive pulse characteristics, making multi-pass post-compressed lasers very applicable for pump–probe spectroscopy at, e.g., free-electron lasers or as efficient drivers for secondary frequency conversion stages.
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