Abstract
The ability to fully characterize ultrashort, ultra-intense X-ray pulses at free-electron lasers (FELs) will be crucial in experiments ranging from single-molecule imaging to extreme-timescale X-ray science. This issue is especially important at current-generation FELs, which are primarily based on self-amplified spontaneous emission and radiate with parameters that fluctuate strongly from pulse to pulse. Using single-cycle terahertz pulses from an optical laser, we have extended the streaking techniques of attosecond metrology to measure the temporal profile of individual FEL pulses with 5 fs full-width at half-maximum accuracy, as well as their arrival on a time base synchronized to the external laser to within 6 fs r.m.s. Optical laser-driven terahertz streaking can be utilized at any X-ray photon energy and is non-invasive, allowing it to be incorporated into any pump–probe experiment, eventually characterizing pulses before and after interaction with most sample environments.
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Acknowledgements
The authors owe special thanks to the scientific and technical staff at FLASH at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), Hamburg, for operation and delivery of the SASE–FEL beam. Portions of this work were funded by the Max Planck Society through institutional support for the Max Planck Research Department for Structural Dynamics at the University of Hamburg, by the Munich Centre for Advanced Photonics, and by the Science Foundation Ireland PI (grant no. 07/IN.1/I1771), IRCSET and the EXTATIC EMJD. N.M.K. is grateful to European XFEL GmbH and to the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) for hospitality and financial support. He also acknowledges financial support from the programme ‘Physics with Accelerators and Reactors in West Europe’ of the Russian Ministry of Education and Science.
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A.L.C., M.C.H. and H.S. conceived the project. I.G. and M.C.H. designed and executed the experiments. C.B., A.L.C., J.T.C, S.D., T.J.K., A.R.M., M.M., T.M., P.R., H.S. and Th.T. assisted in experimental realization. C.B., A.L.C., I.G., M.C.H., A.K.K., N.M.K., A.R.M., T.M., M.M., H.S. and Th.T. analysed and/or interpreted the data. A.L.C., S.D. and M.M. contributed materials to the experiments. A.L.C., J.T.C., I.G., M.C.H., M.M., H.S. and Th.T. wrote the paper.
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Grguraš, I., Maier, A., Behrens, C. et al. Ultrafast X-ray pulse characterization at free-electron lasers. Nature Photon 6, 852–857 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2012.276
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2012.276
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