A multipurpose end-station for atomic, molecular and optical sciences and coherent diffractive imaging at ELI beamlines

Abstract

We report on the status of a users’ end-station, MAC: a Multipurpose station for Atomic, molecular and optical sciences and Coherent diffractive imaging, designed for studies of structure and dynamics of matter in the femtosecond time-domain. MAC is located in the E1 experimental hall on the high harmonic generation (HHG) beamline of the ELI Beamlines facility. The extreme ultraviolet beam from the HHG beamline can be used at the MAC end-station together with a synchronized pump beam (which will cover the NIR/Vis/UV or THz range) for time-resolved experiments on different samples. Sample delivery systems at the MAC end-station include a molecular beam, a source for pure or doped clusters, ultrathin cylindrical or flat liquid jets, and focused beams of substrate-free nanoparticles produced by an electrospray or a gas dynamic virtual nozzle combined with an aerodynamic lens stack. We further present the available detectors: electron/ion time-of-flight and velocity map imaging spectrometers and an X-ray camera, and discuss future upgrades: a magnetic bottle electron spectrometer, production of doped nanodroplets and the planned developments of beam capabilities at the MAC end-station.

Long-lasting XUV activation of helium nanodroplets for avalanche ionization

“…The experiments were performed using the Multipurpose end-station for Atomic, molecular and optical sciences and Coherent diffraction imaging (MAC) at the extreme light infrastructure (ELI beamlines) user facility in Dolní Břežany near Prague [35]. The experimental setup is outlined in figure 1.…”

“…Droplet sizes were determined from titration measurements, see the supplemental material (SM) [36]. The collinearly propagating XUV and NIR laser beams were focused into the He droplet beam inside the interaction region of an electron velocity map imaging (VMI) spectrometer [35]. At the estimated number density of He droplets in the interaction region of about 10 6 cm −3 , the maximum rate of detected avalanche ionization events per laser shot was about 8 %.…”

Electron correlation dynamics in atomic Kr excited by XUV pulses and controlled by NIR laser pulses of variable intensity

“…The experiment has been performed at the MAC end-station [19], at ELI Beamlines, located at the end of a HHG beamline [20]. The Ti:Sapphire drive laser of the HHG beamline (Legend Elite Duo from Coherent) operates at a repetition rate of 1 kHz with a central wavelength at 792 nm and the pulse duration of ∼30 fs.…”

First experiments with a water-jet plasma X-ray source driven by the novel high-power–high-repetition rate L1 Allegra laser at ELI Beamlines

“…The L1 Allegra laser is sent from the L1 hall, located above E1, and can be directed to one of two types of secondary sources -an HHG source for XUV radiation (Hort et al, 2019(Hort et al, , 2020 or plasma X-ray sources (Nejdl et al, 2019). The HHG source serves two stations for XUV science: 'MAC' for atomic, molecular and optical science and coherent diffractive imaging (Klimesova ´et al, 2021), and 'ELIps' for XUV materials science applications (Espinoza et al, 2020). Complementary methods for ultrafast optical spectroscopy are also available (using support lasers): transient optical absorption (Naumova et al, 2018), stimulated Raman scattering (Andrikopoulos et al, 2020), time-resolved spectroscopic ellipsometry (Richter et al, 2021) and IR (1D and 2D) spectroscopy.…”