Non-thermal structural transformation of diamond driven by x-rays.

Intense x-ray pulses can cause the non-thermal structural transformation of diamond. At the SACLA XFEL facility, pump x-ray pulses triggered this phase transition, and probe x-ray pulses produced diffraction patterns. Time delays were observed from 0 to 250 fs, and the x-ray dose varied from 0.

Dynamics of femtosecond heated warm dense copper with time-resolved L3-edge XANES.

Combining experimental set up and molecular dynamics simulations, we were able to follow the time evolution of the X-ray absorption near edge spectrum (XANES) of a dense copper plasma. This provides a deep insight into femtosecond laser interaction with a metallic copper target. This paper presents a review of the experimental developments we made to reduce the X-ray probe duration, from approximately 10 ps to fs duration with table-top laser systems.