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Amplified spontaneous emission in the extreme ultraviolet by expanding xenon clusters

Andrei Benediktovitch, Laurent Mercadier, Olivier Peyrusse, Andreas Przystawik, Tim Laarmann, Bruno Langbehn, Cédric Bomme, Benjamin Erk, Jonathan Correa, Caroline Mossé, Daniel Rolles, Sven Toleikis, Maximilian Bucher, Christoph F. O. Bostedt, Alvaro Sanchez-Gonzalez, Stepan Dobrodey, Michael A. Blessenohl, Alexander Nelde, Maria Müller, Daniela Rupp, Thomas Möller, José R. Crespo López-Urrutia, and Nina Rohringer
Phys. Rev. A 101, 063412 – Published 22 June 2020

Abstract

Focused short-wavelength free-electron laser (FEL) pulses interacting with gas phase samples can induce by inner-shell ionization a short-lived population inversion, followed by coherent collective emission of directed, short, and strong radiation bursts. We extend our studies into the warm-dense matter (WDM) regime by investigating the nanoplasmas produced in an ensemble of nanometer-sized clusters by FEL irradiation. Here, additional pathways can also lead to strong, laserlike emission: Electron-ion collisions can yield a long-lived population inversion, and subsequent amplified spontaneous emission. We observe amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) in the extreme ultraviolet in xenon clusters excited by soft x-ray FEL pulses, we diagnose the generated nanoplasmas by fluorescence spectroscopy, and we study under various cluster and FEL parameters the directed ASE from the Xe2+ 65 nm line. We show its exponential increase as a function of FEL irradiation power, and an accompanying collisional broadening of the emission spectra. These findings are corroborated by extensive numerical simulations based on theory, combining detailed hydrodynamic and kinetic simulations with time-dependent calculations of radiation transport, amplification, and collective emission in the WDM nanoplasma. Our theoretical findings underline that population inversion is due to electron-ion collisions and that the observed decoherence processes can be empirically characterized by a phenomenological decoherence time in the range of 100–200 fs.

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  • Received 27 January 2020
  • Revised 27 April 2020
  • Accepted 26 May 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.101.063412

©2020 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Atomic, Molecular & OpticalPlasma Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Andrei Benediktovitch1,*, Laurent Mercadier2, Olivier Peyrusse3, Andreas Przystawik1, Tim Laarmann1,4, Bruno Langbehn5, Cédric Bomme1, Benjamin Erk1, Jonathan Correa1, Caroline Mossé3, Daniel Rolles1,6, Sven Toleikis1, Maximilian Bucher7, Christoph F. O. Bostedt8, Alvaro Sanchez-Gonzalez9, Stepan Dobrodey10, Michael A. Blessenohl10, Alexander Nelde5, Maria Müller5, Daniela Rupp5,11, Thomas Möller5, José R. Crespo López-Urrutia10, and Nina Rohringer1,12

  • 1Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Hamburg 22607, Germany
  • 2European XFEL GmbH, Schenefeld 22869, Germany
  • 3Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS UMR 7345, PIIM, Marseille, France
  • 4Centre for Ultrafast Imaging CUI, Hamburg 22761, Germany
  • 5Institut für Optik und Atomare Physik, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin 10623, Germany
  • 6J. R. Macdonald Laboratory, Department of Physics, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506-2601, USA
  • 7Linac Coherent Light Source, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA
  • 8Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, Illinois 60439, USA
  • 9Imperial College, Department of Physics, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom
  • 10Max-Plank-Institut für Kernphysik, Heidelberg, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
  • 11Department of Physics, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland
  • 12Department of Physics, Universität Hamburg, Hamburg 22761, Germany

  • *andrei.benediktovitch@desy.de

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Vol. 101, Iss. 6 — June 2020

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