Beamline BL1 at the FLASH free-electron laser facility at DESY was upgraded with new transport and focusing optics for the installation of the new permanent CAMP end-station, a multi-purpose instrument optimized for electron- and ion-spectroscopy, imaging and pump–probe experiments. An overview of the layout, beam transport, focusing capabilities, and experimental possibilities of this new end-station, as well as results from its commissioning and first experiments, are presented.

The generation of highly charged Xe(q+) ions up to q=24 is observed in Xe clusters embedded in helium nanodroplets and exposed to intense femtosecond laser pulses (λ=800  nm). Laser intensity resolved measurements show that the high-q ion generation starts at an unexpectedly low threshold intensity of about 10(14)  W/cm2. Above threshold, the Xe ion charge spectrum saturates quickly and changes only weakly for higher laser intensities. Good agreement between these observations and a molecular dynamics analysis allows us to identify the mechanisms responsible for the highly charged ion production and the surprising intensity threshold behavior of the ionization process.

Extremely large xenon clusters with sizes exceeding the predictions of the Hagena scaling law by several orders of magnitude are shown to be produced in pulsed gas jets. The cluster sizes are determined using single-shot single-particle imaging experiments with short-wavelength light pulses from the free-electron laser in Hamburg (FLASH). Scanning the time delay between the pulsed cluster source and the intense femtosecond x-ray pulses first shows a main plateau with size distributions in line with the scaling laws, which is followed by an after-pulse of giant clusters. For the extremely large clusters with radii of several hundred nanometers the x-ray scattering patterns indicate a grainy substructure of the particles, suggesting that they grow by cluster coagulation.

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Irradiation of nanoscale clusters and large molecules with intense laser pulses transforms them into highly-excited non- equilibrium states. The dynamics of intense laser-cluster interaction is encoded in electron kinetic energy spectra, which contain signatures of direct photoelectron emission as well as emission of thermalized nanoplasma electrons. In this work we report on a so far not observed spectrally narrow bound state signature in the electron kinetic energy spectra from mixed Xe core - Ar shell clusters ionized by intense extreme-ultraviolet (XUV) pulses from a free-electron-laser. This signature is attributed to the correlated electronic decay (CED) process, in which an excited atom relaxes and the excess energy is used to ionize the same or another excited atom or a nanoplasma electron. By applying the terahertz field streaking principle we demonstrate that CED-electrons are emitted at least a few picoseconds after the ionizing XUV pulse has ended. Following the recent finding of CED in clusters ionized by intense near-infrared laser pulses, our observation of CED in the XUV range suggests that this process is of general relevance for the relaxation dynamics in laser produced nanoplasmas.

We have recorded the diffraction patterns from individual xenon clusters irradiated with intense extreme ultraviolet pulses to investigate the influence of light-induced electronic changes on the scattering response. The clusters were irradiated with short wavelength pulses in the wavelength regime of different 4d inner-shell resonances of neutral and ionic xenon, resulting in distinctly different optical properties from areas in the clusters with lower or higher charge states. The data show the emergence of a transient structure with a spatial extension of tens of nanometers within the otherwise homogeneous sample. Simulations indicate that ionization and nanoplasma formation result in a light-induced outer shell in the cluster with a strongly altered refractive index. The presented resonant scattering approach enables imaging of ultrafast electron dynamics on their natural timescale.

The advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) UV/H2O2, UV/O3 and O3/H2O2 were optimised to achieve a 90% degradation of the micropollutant atrazine in continuous-flow reactors. The experiments were performed with spiked Berlin tap-water. The comparison of mechanistically different oxidation systems needs a non-specific figure-of-merit to avoid influences by system-inherent parameters. The chosen figure-of-merit consists of the electrical energy per order of magnitude in oxidation per m3, EE/o. The combination O3/H2O2 proved to be the most efficient process by means of energy consumption.