Explosion dynamics of sucrose nanospheres monitored by time of flight spectrometry and coherent diffractive imaging at the split-and-delay beam line of the FLASH soft X-ray laser.
We use a Mach-Zehnder type autocorrelator to split and delay XUV pulses from the FLASH soft X-ray laser for triggering and subsequently probing the explosion of aerosolised sugar balls. FLASH was running at 182 eV photon energy with pulses of 70 fs duration. The delay between the pump-probe pulses was varied between zero and 5 ps, and the pulses were focused to reach peak intensities above 10¹⁶W/cm² with an off-axis parabola. The direct pulse triggered the explosion of single aerosolised sucrose nano-particles, while the delayed pulse probed the exploding structure. The ejected ions were measured by ion time of flight spectrometry, and the particle sizes were measured by coherent diffractive imaging. The results show that sucrose particles of 560-1000 nm diameter retain their size for about 500 fs following the first exposure. Significant sample expansion happens between 500 fs and 1 ps. We present simulations to support these observations.
Asawari D
AD
Rath
Nicusor
N
Timneanu
Filipe R N C
FR
Maia
Johan
J
Bielecki
Holger
H
Fleckenstein
Bianca
B
Iwan
Martin
M
Svenda
Dirk
D
Hasse
Gunilla
G
Carlsson
Daniel
D
Westphal
Kerstin
K
Mühlig
Max
M
Hantke
Tomas
T
Ekeberg
M Marvin
MM
Seibert
Alessandro
A
Zani
Mengning
M
Liang
Francesco
F
Stellato
Richard
R
Kirian
Richard
R
Bean
Anton
A
Barty
Lorenzo
L
Galli
Karol
K
Nass
Miriam
M
Barthelmess
Andrew
A
Aquila
Sven
S
Toleikis
Rolf
R
Treusch
Sebastian
S
Roling
Michael
M
Wöstmann
Helmut
H
Zacharias
Henry N
HN
Chapman
Saša
S
Bajt
Daniel
D
DePonte
Janos
J
Hajdu
Jakob
J
Andreasson
D003198:Computer Simulation; D004583:Electrons; D006859:Hydrogen / Q000737:chemistry; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods*; D007477:Ions; D007834:Lasers; D054118:Nanospheres / Q000737:chemistry*; D013057:Spectrum Analysis / Q000379:methods*; D013395:Sucrose / Q000737:chemistry*; D013816:Thermodynamics; D014965:X-Rays
D007477:Ions; D013395:Sucrose; D006859:Hydrogen