Soft X-ray Materials Research at the LCLS: The Case of Strongly Correlated Electrons

Program Description

The Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) has opened up a new arena for studying materials with ultra-short, and extremely intense x-ray pulses. In this talk, Josh Turner will first give an overview of the soft x-ray materials research instrument (SXR), which has come on-line in the last year and has demonstrated the ability to explore properties at the forefront of condensed matter physics. A specific class of materials will then be described that are based on strongly correlated electrons, systems that are difficult to describe theoretically and contain a wide range of interesting phenomena. Data from a few SXR highlights will be presented from first measurements on these materials and we will conclude with a look at the future through two new types of experiments. These experiments should soon migrate to the LCLS and are based on coherent diffraction imaging: magnetic phase retrieval and x-ray reflection holography.