Enabling soft x-ray attosecond science in novel materials using high-harmonic generation sources

Speaker:  Adam Summers, SLAC

Program Description:

Advances in the field of high-harmonic generation and ultrafast laser technology have now delivered the ability to produce isolated attosecond pulses in the soft x-ray regime with sufficient flux to perform time-resolved investigations.

These pulses inherently possess a coherent, multi-octave bandwidth that can extend beyond the oxygen K-edge (530 eV), allowing for simultaneous coverage of multiple X-ray absorption edges. Here I will detail several studies implementing transient absorption x-ray spectroscopy with attosecond pulses to probe both electronic and nuclear dynamics in solid-state systems within a single experiment. These results show the powerful capability of soft x-ray absorption spectroscopy to disentangle and track ultrafast processes in complex and novel materials. This strongly motivates the continued effort to extend x-ray science into the attosecond regime, using both high-harmonic generation, as well as free-electron laser based light sources.