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New tool to investigate the chemistry of nature: Laser-based tabletop setup generates ultrashort XUV light pulses

Date:
April 30, 2014
Source:
Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie
Summary:
Scientists have built a laser-based tabletop setup which generates ultrashort XUV light pulses and achieves their monochromatization by implementing special reflection zone plates. Liquid phases are a natural environment for many interesting processes in chemistry and biology, and short light pulses allow insights into electronic and structural dynamics of molecules and molecular complexes.
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The Aziz' team at the Joint Laboratory between Freie Universität Berlin and HZB has built a laser-based tabletop setup which generates ultrashort XUV light pulses and achieves their monochromatization by implementing special reflection zone plates, developed and produced by the team of Alexei Erko.

HZB-scientist Emad Aziz, who leads the Joint lab between HZB and Freie Universität Berlin, has developed and installed a new tool to investigate ultrafast dynamics in solutions and at interfaces with the use of ultrashort laser pulses. Liquid phases are a natural environment for many interesting processes in chemistry and biology, and short light pulses allow insights into electronic and structural dynamics of molecules and molecular complexes. In particular, photoelectron spectroscopy with extreme ultraviolet (XUV) radiation is a powerful method to probe the electron density in a valence shell of a molecular system. In combination with a pump-probe technique, this method enables to reveal mechanisms of molecular processes, which typically occur on the subpicosecond or femtosecond time scale.

Now Aziz and his team have built a new laser-based tabletop setup which generates XUV light pulses with a duration of 45 femtoseconds. To select specific wavelengths, they implemented special reflection zone plates, developed and fabricated in the HZB-Institute for Nanometre Optics and Technology headed by Alexei Erko. These reflection zone plates achieve monochromatization with extremely high efficiency and minimum temporal pulse distortion.

"In building up this new table-top device and testing it, Jan Metje has achieved one of the major goals of his PhD," his co-supervisor Dr. Igor Kiyan explains. Pulse duration of 45 femtoseconds for monochromatized harmonics is 300 times shorter than the typical pulse duration of synchrotron radiation (15 picoseconds) and is comparable to the pulse length of a free-electron laser (FEL). "Our lab-based experiment has some advantages over FEL's," Aziz points out: "It allows time resolved photo-emission spectroscopy of molecular systems in solutions, so that we can investigate catalytic and energy materials under real conditions as well as the chemistry of natural processes which occur typically in liquid phases and at interfaces. And, last but not least, it is accessible all the time."


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Materials provided by Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal Reference:

  1. Jan Metje, Mario Borgwardt, Alexandre Moguilevski, Alexander Kothe, Nicholas Engel, Martin Wilke, Ruba Al-Obaidi, Daniel Tolksdorf, Alexander Firsov, Maria Brzhezinskaya, Alexei Erko, Igor Yu. Kiyan, Emad F. Aziz. Monochromatization of femtosecond XUV light pulses with the use of reflection zone plates. Optics Express, 2014; 22 (9): 10747 DOI: 10.1364/OE.22.010747

Cite This Page:

Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie. "New tool to investigate the chemistry of nature: Laser-based tabletop setup generates ultrashort XUV light pulses." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 30 April 2014. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140430101924.htm>.
Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie. (2014, April 30). New tool to investigate the chemistry of nature: Laser-based tabletop setup generates ultrashort XUV light pulses. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 27, 2024 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140430101924.htm
Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie. "New tool to investigate the chemistry of nature: Laser-based tabletop setup generates ultrashort XUV light pulses." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140430101924.htm (accessed March 27, 2024).

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