Journal of Synchrotron Radiation (Mar 2023)

Photon-shot-noise-limited transient absorption soft X-ray spectroscopy at the European XFEL

  • Loïc Le Guyader,
  • Andrea Eschenlohr,
  • Martin Beye,
  • William Schlotter,
  • Florian Döring,
  • Cammille Carinan,
  • David Hickin,
  • Naman Agarwal,
  • Christine Boeglin,
  • Uwe Bovensiepen,
  • Jens Buck,
  • Robert Carley,
  • Andrea Castoldi,
  • Alessandro D'Elia,
  • Jan-Torben Delitz,
  • Wajid Ehsan,
  • Robin Engel,
  • Florian Erdinger,
  • Hans Fangohr,
  • Peter Fischer,
  • Carlo Fiorini,
  • Alexander Föhlisch,
  • Luca Gelisio,
  • Michael Gensch,
  • Natalia Gerasimova,
  • Rafael Gort,
  • Karsten Hansen,
  • Steffen Hauf,
  • Manuel Izquierdo,
  • Emmanuelle Jal,
  • Ebad Kamil,
  • Suren Karabekyan,
  • Thomas Kluyver,
  • Tim Laarmann,
  • Tobias Lojewski,
  • David Lomidze,
  • Stefano Maffessanti,
  • Talgat Mamyrbayev,
  • Augusto Marcelli,
  • Laurent Mercadier,
  • Giuseppe Mercurio,
  • Piter S. Miedema,
  • Katharina Ollefs,
  • Kai Rossnagel,
  • Benedikt Rösner,
  • Nico Rothenbach,
  • Andrey Samartsev,
  • Justine Schlappa,
  • Kiana Setoodehnia,
  • Gheorghe Sorin Chiuzbaian,
  • Lea Spieker,
  • Christian Stamm,
  • Francesco Stellato,
  • Simone Techert,
  • Martin Teichmann,
  • Monica Turcato,
  • Benjamin Van Kuiken,
  • Heiko Wende,
  • Alexander Yaroslavtsev,
  • Jun Zhu,
  • Serguei Molodtsov,
  • Christian David,
  • Matteo Porro,
  • Andreas Scherz

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1107/S1600577523000619
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 30, no. 2
pp. 284 – 300

Abstract

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Femtosecond transient soft X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) is a very promising technique that can be employed at X-ray free-electron lasers (FELs) to investigate out-of-equilibrium dynamics for material and energy research. Here, a dedicated setup for soft X-rays available at the Spectroscopy and Coherent Scattering (SCS) instrument at the European X-ray Free-Electron Laser (European XFEL) is presented. It consists of a beam-splitting off-axis zone plate (BOZ) used in transmission to create three copies of the incoming beam, which are used to measure the transmitted intensity through the excited and unexcited sample, as well as to monitor the incoming intensity. Since these three intensity signals are detected shot by shot and simultaneously, this setup allows normalized shot-by-shot analysis of the transmission. For photon detection, an imaging detector capable of recording up to 800 images at 4.5 MHz frame rate during the FEL burst is employed, and allows a photon-shot-noise-limited sensitivity to be approached. The setup and its capabilities are reviewed as well as the online and offline analysis tools provided to users.

Keywords