Probing ultra-fast processes with high dynamic range at 4th-generation light sources: arrival time and intensity binning at unprecedented repetition rates
Probing ultra-fast processes with high dynamic range at 4th-generation light sources: arrival time and intensity binning at unprecedented repetition rates
Kovalev, S.; Green, B.; Golz, T.; Maehrlein, S.; Stojanovic, N.; Fisher, A. S.; Kampfrath, T.; Gensch, M.
Understanding dynamics on ultrafast timescales enables unique and new insights into important processes in the materials and life sciences. In this respect, the fundamental pump-probe approach based on ultra-short photon pulses aims at the creation of stroboscopic movies. Performing such experiments at one of the many recently established accelerator-based 4th-generation light sources such as free-electron lasers (FELs) or superradiant THz sources allows an enormous widening of the accessible parameter space for the excitation and/or probing light pulses. Compared to table-top devices, critical issues of this type of experiment are fluctuations of the timing between the accelerator and external laser systems and intensity instabilities of the accelerator-based photon sources. Existing solutions have so far been only demonstrated at low repetition rates and/or achieved a limited dynamic range in comparison to table-top experiments, while the 4th generation of accelerator-based light sources is based on superconducting radio-frequency (SRF) technology which enables operation at MHz or even GHz repetition rates. In this article, we present the successful demonstration of ultra-fast accelerator-laser pump-probe experiments performed at an unprecedentedly high repetition rate in the few-hundred-kHz regime and with a currently achievable optimal time resolution of 13 femtoseconds (fs) (rms). Our scheme, based on the pulse-resolved detection of multiple beam parameters relevant for the experiment, allows us to achieve an excellent sensitivity in real-world ultra-fast experiments, as demonstrated for the example of THz-field-driven coherent spin precession.
Keywords: ultra-fast; high field THz
Involved research facilities
- Radiation Source ELBE DOI: 10.17815/jlsrf-2-58
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Permalink: https://www.hzdr.de/publications/Publ-25231