First Steps Toward a Time-domain X-ray Spectroscopy

Ryan Coffee works with the interactions of small molecules with strong laser fields. His background lies in Ti:Sapphire laser driven multiple ionization of nitrogen. Ryan studied the Coulomb fragmentation with ion time-of-flight spectroscopy as well as vacuum ultraviolet fluorescence spectroscopy. Since coming to PULSE, Ryan has added cell based experience with the strong field impulsive alignment of iodine.

Program Description

The LCLS is capable of the shortest x-ray pulses in the world. In this talk, Ryan Coffee will discuss how these short pulses can be used to move x-ray spectroscopy into the time domain. Specifically, he will discuss Auger electron spectroscopy in the reference frame of a molecule and then present a time-domain measurement of resonant "bleaching" of an x-ray transition. The latter constitutes the LCLS team’s first attempt at x-ray transient absorption spectroscopy in the few femtosecond regime.