No abstract

International audienceThe two single-pass, externally seeded free-electron lasers (FELs) of the FERMI user facility are designed around Apple-II-type undulators that can operate at arbitrary polarization in the vacuum ultraviolet-to-soft x-ray spectral range. Furthermore, within each FEL tuning range, any output wavelength and polarization can be set in less than a minute of routine operations. We report the first demonstration of the full output polarization capabilities of FERMI FEL-1 in a campaign of experiments where the wavelength and nominal polarization are set to a series of representative values, and the polarization of the emitted intense pulses is thoroughly characterized by three independent instruments and methods, expressly developed for the task. The measured radiation polarization is consistently >90% and is not significantly spoiled by the transport optics; differing, relative transport losses for horizontal and vertical polarization become more prominent at longer wavelengths and lead to a non-negligible ellipticity for an originally circularly polarized state. The results from the different polarimeter setups validate each other, allow a cross-calibration of the instruments, and constitute a benchmark for user experiments

Extreme-ultraviolet to x-ray free-electron lasers (FELs) in operation for scientific applications are up to now single-user facilities. While most FELs generate around 100 photon pulses per second, FLASH at DESY can deliver almost two orders of magnitude more pulses in this time span due to its superconducting accelerator technology. This makes the facility a prime candidate to realize the next step in FELs-dividing the electron pulse trains into several FEL lines and delivering photon pulses to several users at the same time. Hence, FLASH has been extended with a second undulator line and self-amplified spontaneous emission (SASE) is demonstrated in both FELs simultaneously. FLASH can now deliver MHz pulse trains to two user experiments in parallel with individually selected photon beam characteristics. First results of the capabilities of this extension are shown with emphasis on independent variation of wavelength, repetition rate, and photon pulse length.

We report about the development and implementation of a new setup for time-resolved X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy at beamline P11 utilizing the outstanding source properties of the low-emittance PETRA III synchrotron storage ring in Hamburg. Using a high intensity micrometer-sized X-ray beam in combination with two positional feedback systems, measurements were performed on the transition metal complex fac-Tris[2-phenylpyridinato-C2,N]iridium(III) also referred to as fac-Ir(ppy)3. This compound is a representative of the phosphorescent iridium(III) complexes, which play an important role in organic light emitting diode (OLED) technology. The experiment could directly prove the anticipated photoinduced charge transfer reaction. Our results further reveal that the temporal resolution of the experiment is limited by the PETRA III X-ray bunch length of ∼103 ps full width at half maximum (FWHM).

Electron emission caused by extreme ultraviolet (XUV) radiation in the presence of a strong near infrared (NIR) field leads to multiphoton interactions that depend on several parameters. Here, a comprehensive study of the influence of the angle between the polarization directions of the NIR and XUV fields on the two-color angle-resolved photoelectron spectra of He and Ne is presented. The resulting photoelectron angular distribution strongly depends on the orientation of the NIR polarization plane with respect to that of the XUV field. The prevailing influence of the intense NIR field over the angular emission characteristics for He(1s) and Ne(2p) ionization lines is shown. The underlying processes are modeled in the frame of the strong field approximation (SFA) which shows very consistent agreement with the experiment reaffirming the power of the SFA for multicolor-multiphoton ionization in this regime.