title: Table-top ultrafast x-ray microcalorimeter spectrometry for molecular structure.
abstract: This work presents an x-ray absorption measurement by use of ionizing radiation generated by a femtosecond pulsed laser source. The spectrometer was a microcalorimetric array whose pixels are capable of accurately measuring energies of individual radiation quanta. An isotropic continuum x-ray spectrum in the few-keV range was generated from a laser plasma source with a water-jet target. X rays were transmitted through a ferrocene powder sample to the detector, whose pixels have average photon energy resolution ΔE=3.14  eV full-width-at-half-maximum at 5.9 keV. The bond distance of ferrocene was retrieved from this first hard-x-ray absorption fine-structure spectrum collected with an energy-dispersive detector. This technique will be broadly enabling for time-resolved observations of structural dynamics in photoactive systems.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Physics, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Uhlig
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Fullagar
authors.forename: J N
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Ullom
authors.forename: W B
authors.initials: WB
authors.lastname: Doriese
authors.forename: J W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Fowler
authors.forename: D S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Swetz
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Gador
authors.forename: S E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Canton
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kinnunen
authors.forename: I J
authors.initials: IJ
authors.lastname: Maasilta
authors.forename: C D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Reintsema
authors.forename: D A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Bennett
authors.forename: L R
authors.initials: LR
authors.lastname: Vale
authors.forename: G C
authors.initials: GC
authors.lastname: Hilton
authors.forename: K D
authors.initials: KD
authors.lastname: Irwin
authors.forename: D R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Schmidt
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Sundström