J. Dardis

Single-shot characterization of independent femtosecond extreme ultraviolet free electron and infrared laser pulses

Two-color above threshold ionization of helium and xenon has been used to analyze the synchronization between individual pulses of the femtosecond extreme ultraviolet (XUV) free electron laser in Hamburg and an independent intense 120fs mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser. Characteristic sidebands appear in the photoelectron spectra when the two pulses overlap spatially and temporally. The cross-correlation curve points to a 250fs rms jitter between the two sources at the experiment. A more precise determination of the temporal fluctuation between the XUV and infrared pulses is obtained through the analysis of the single-shot sideband intensities.

Time-resolved pump-probe experiments beyond the jitter limitations at FLASH

Using a noninvasive, electro-optically based electron bunch arrival time measurement at FLASH (free electron laser in Hamburg) the temporal resolution of two-color pump-probe experiments has been significantly improved. The system determines the relative arrival time of the extended ultraviolet pulse of FLASH and an amplified Ti:sapphire femtosecond-laser pulse at the interaction region better than 90 fs rms. In a benchmarking pump-probe experiment using two-color above threshold ionization of noble gases, an enhancement in the timing resolution by a factor of 4 compared to the uncorrected data is obtained.

Analysis of time-resolved laser plasma ablation using an imaging spectra technique

Pulsed laser deposition (PLD) is extensively employed for the growth of thin films. The laser-material interaction involves complex processes of heating, melting, vaporization, ejection of atoms, ions and molecules, shock waves, plasma initiation, expansion and deposition onto a substrate. The understanding of the spatial and temporal distribution of a plasma parameters in a laser-produced plasma is important to the control of thin film growth process. In this work we have studied the dynamics of laser ablated graphitic carbon plasma expanding into vacuum using a spectroscopic imaging suitable as an in situ & automated diagnostic sampling technique for PLD. Time-resolved spectra, that were also spatially resolved in one dimension along the axis of plasma expansion, were obtained using a time-gated intensified charge-coupled device (ICCD) coupled to a stigmatic Czerny-Turner spectrograph. Plasma parameters such as electron density, temperature and plume velocity expansion were extracted directly from the analysis of the C II (2s 2 3d-2s 2 4f) transition.

The Laser-assisted photoelectric effect of He, Ne, Ar and Xe in intense extreme ultraviolet and infrared laser fields

In this paper, we report results on two-colour above-threshold ionisation, where extreme ultraviolet pulses of femtosecond duration were synchronised to intense infrared laser pulses of picosecond duration, in order to study the laser-assisted photoelectric effect of atomic helium, neon, krypton and xenon which leads to the appearance of characteristic sidebands in the photoelectron spectra. The observed trends are found to be well described by a simple model based on the soft-photon approximation, at least for the relatively low optical intensities of up to employed in these early experiments.

Atomic photoionization in weak and strong two-color radiation fields

Two-color photoionization processes in rare gases have been studied using the combination of XUV pulses from the Free Electron Laser in Hamburg (FLASH) and intense femtosecond pulses from an external synchronized near infrared laser. In the low field regime of the NIR dressing laser ( 1111 W/cm2), multi-photon processes are dominant and theoretical descriptions beyond time-dependent second order perturbation formalism have to be applied.

Progress report on compact system for point projection X-ray absorption spectroscopy and imaging of laser produced plasmas

X-ray point projection absorption spectroscopy (X-PPAS) is a long established and extremely useful dynamic diagnostic of hydrodynamics, ionization balance, etc. in laser produced plasmas. It has however, to date, been exclusively the preserve of large-scale laser facilities and also used to probe plasmas formed by relatively short pulse (< 1 ns) lasers. We report here the design and selective instrumental performance measures of a new table-top scale X-ray spectrometer system which forms the core of the X-PPAS system. Our design goal is to make X-PPAS a routine diagnostic and also apply it to the measurement of deep inner-shell photoabsorption by plasma atoms and ions.