Generation of coherent 19- and 38-nm radiation at a free-electron laser directly seeded at 38 nm.

Initiating the gain process in a free-electron laser (FEL) from an external highly coherent source of radiation is a promising way to improve the pulse properties such as temporal coherence and synchronization performance in time-resolved pump-probe experiments at FEL facilities, but this so-called "seeding" suffers from the lack of adequate sources at short wavelengths. We report on the first successful seeding at a wavelength as short as 38.2 nm, resulting in GW-level, coherent FEL radiation pulses at this wavelength as well as significant second harmonic emission at 19.1 nm. The external seed pulses are about 1 order of magnitude shorter compared to previous experiments allowing an ultimate time resolution for the investigation of dynamic processes enabling breakthroughs in ultrafast science with FELs. The seeding pulse is the 21st harmonic of an 800-nm, 15-fs (rms) laser pulse generated in an argon medium. Methods for finding the overlap of seed pulses with electron bunches in spatial, longitudinal, and spectral dimensions are discussed and results are presented. The experiment was conducted at FLASH, the FEL user facility at DESY in Hamburg, Germany.

Evidence for chirped Auger-electron emission.

Auger decay carries valuable information about the electronic structure and dynamics of atoms, molecules, and solids. Here we furnish evidence that under certain conditions Auger electrons are subject to an energetic chirp. The effect is disclosed in time-resolved streaking experiments on the Xe NOO and Kr MNN Auger decay using extreme-ultraviolet pulses from the free-electron laser in Hamburg as well as from a high-order harmonic laser source. The origin of this effect is found to be an exchange of energy between the Auger electron and an earlier emitted correlated photoelectron. The observed time-dependent spectral modulations are understood within an analytical model and confirmed by extensive computer simulations.

Characterization of a two-color pump-probe setup at FLASH using a velocity map imaging spectrometer.

We report on the implementation of a high-count-rate charged particle imaging detector for two-color pump-probe experiments at the free electron laser in Hamburg (FLASH). In doing so, we have developed a procedure for finding the spatial and temporal overlap between the extreme UV free electron laser (FEL) pulses and the IR pulses, which allows for complete alignment of the setup in situations where the region of overlap between the FEL and the IR is not easily accessible by means of imaging optics.

Polarization control in two-color above-threshold ionization of atomic helium.

Two-color multiphoton ionization of atomic helium was investigated by combining extreme ultraviolet (XUV) radiation from the Free Electron Laser in Hamburg with an intense synchronized optical laser. In the photoelectron spectrum, lines associated with direct ionization and above-threshold ionization show strong variations of their amplitudes as a function of both the intensity of the optical dressing field and the relative orientation of the linear polarization vectors of the two fields. The polarization dependence provides direct insight into the symmetry of the outgoing electrons in above-threshold ionization. In the high field regime, the monochromaticity of the XUV radiation enables the unperturbed observation of nonlinear processes in the optical field.