title: Sacrificial tamper slows down sample explosion in FLASH diffraction experiments.
abstract: Intense and ultrashort x-ray pulses from free-electron lasers open up the possibility for near-atomic resolution imaging without the need for crystallization. Such experiments require high photon fluences and pulses shorter than the time to destroy the sample. We describe results with a new femtosecond pump-probe diffraction technique employing coherent 0.1 keV x rays from the FLASH soft x-ray free-electron laser. We show that the lifetime of a nanostructured sample can be extended to several picoseconds by a tamper layer to dampen and quench the sample explosion, making <1 nm resolution imaging feasible.
authors.affiliation: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 7000 East Avenue, Livermore, California 94550, USA. hauriege1@llnl.gov
authors.forename: Stefan P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Hau-Riege
authors.forename: Sébastien
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Boutet
authors.forename: Anton
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Barty
authors.forename: Sasa
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bajt
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Bogan
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Frank
authors.forename: Jakob
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Andreasson
authors.forename: Bianca
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Iwan
authors.forename: M Marvin
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Seibert
authors.forename: Janos
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hajdu
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sakdinawat
authors.forename: Joachim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Schulz
authors.forename: Rolf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Treusch
authors.forename: Henry N
authors.initials: HN
authors.lastname: Chapman
mesh_terms: D004583:Electrons; D007834:Lasers; D014961:X-Ray Diffraction / Q000379:methods*; D014965:X-Rays