All Publications


  • Generation of highly mutually coherent hard-x-ray pulse pairs with an amplitude-splitting delay line PHYSICAL REVIEW RESEARCH Li, H., Sun, Y., Vila-Comamala, J., Sato, T., Song, S., Sun, P., Seaberg, M. H., Wang, N., Hastings, J. B., Dunne, M., Fuoss, P., David, C., Sutton, M., Zhu, D. 2021; 3 (4)
  • Speckle correlation as a monitor of X-ray free-electron laser induced crystal lattice deformation. Journal of synchrotron radiation Plumley, R. n., Sun, Y. n., Teitelbaum, S. n., Song, S. n., Sato, T. n., Chollet, M. n., Nelson, S. n., Wang, N. n., Sun, P. n., Robert, A. n., Fuoss, P. n., Sutton, M. n., Zhu, D. n. 2020; 27 (Pt 6): 1470–76

    Abstract

    X-ray free-electron lasers (X-FELs) present new opportunities to study ultrafast lattice dynamics in complex materials. While the unprecedented source brilliance enables high fidelity measurement of structural dynamics, it also raises experimental challenges related to the understanding and control of beam-induced irreversible structural changes in samples that can ultimately impact the interpretation of experimental results. This is also important for designing reliable high performance X-ray optical components. In this work, X-FEL beam-induced lattice alterations are investigated by measuring the shot-to-shot evolution of near-Bragg coherent scattering from a single crystalline germanium sample. It is shown that X-ray photon correlation analysis of sequential speckle patterns measurements can be used to monitor the nature and extent of lattice rearrangements. Abrupt, irreversible changes are observed following intermittent high-fluence monochromatic X-ray pulses, thus revealing the existence of a threshold response to X-FEL pulse intensity.

    View details for DOI 10.1107/S1600577520011509

    View details for PubMedID 33147171

  • Compact hard x-ray split-delay system based on variable-gap channel-cut crystals OPTICS LETTERS Sun, Y., Wang, N., Song, S., Sun, P., Chollet, M., Sato, T., van Driel, T. B., Nelson, S., Plumley, R., Montana-Lopez, J., Teitelbaum, S. W., Haber, J., Hastings, J. B., Baron, A. R., Sutton, M., Fuoss, P. H., Robert, A., Zhu, D. 2019; 44 (10): 2582–85

    Abstract

    We present the concept and a prototypical implementation of a compact x-ray split-delay system that is capable of performing continuous on-the-fly delay scans over a range of ∼10  ps with sub-100 nanoradian pointing stability. The system consists of four channel-cut silicon crystals, two of which have gradually varying gap sizes from intentional 5 deg asymmetric cuts. The delay adjustment is realized by linear motions of these two monolithic varying-gap channel cuts, where the x-ray beam experiences pairs of anti-parallel reflections, and thus becomes less sensitive in output beam pointing to motion imperfections of the translation stages. The beam splitting is accomplished by polished crystal edges. A high degree of mutual coherence between the two branches at the focus is observed by analyzing small-angle coherent x-ray scattering patterns. We envision a wide range of applications including single-shot x-ray pulse temporal diagnostics, studies of high-intensity x-ray-matter interactions, as well as measurement of dynamics in disordered material systems using split-pulse x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy.

    View details for DOI 10.1364/OL.44.002582

    View details for Web of Science ID 000467906400050

    View details for PubMedID 31090737