Temporal and spatial coherence properties of free-electron-laser pulses in the extreme ultraviolet regime

The average temporal (longitudinal) and spatial (transverse) coherence of free-electron-laser pulses in the extreme ultraviolet at FLASH is measured by interfering two time-delayed partial beams directly on a CCD camera. Wavelengths between $\ensuremath{\lambda}=32\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{nm}$ and $\ensuremath{\lambda}=8\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{nm}$ are examined. A decrease of the coherence time for the fundamental wavelengths from ${\ensuremath{\tau}}_{c}=(6\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.5)\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{fs}$ at 32 nm to ${\ensuremath{\tau}}_{c}=(2.9\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.5)\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{fs}$ at 8 nm is measured. At $\ensuremath{\lambda}=8\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{nm}$ the fundamental wavelength and the third harmonic of 24 nm are compared to each other. For 8 nm radiation as third harmonic of 24 nm a coherence time of ${\ensuremath{\tau}}_{c}=(2.5\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.5)\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{fs}$ is observed. The spatial coherence of 24 and 8 nm fundamental pulses are found to be very similar. The visibility decreases to 50% of the maximum visibility at about 3.2 mm overlap of the partial beams, which corresponds to 42% of the beam diameter at a distance of 90 m from the exit of the undulator. These results are analyzed in terms of the Gaussian Schell model resulting in six contributing modes to the total radiation. In addition, the correlation of the visibility between the fundamental radiation at 24 nm and its third harmonic at $\ensuremath{\lambda}=8\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{nm}$ is investigated for identical shots.

[1]  Zhirong Huang,et al.  A review of x-ray free-electron laser theory. , 2007 .

[2]  Statistical properties of the radiation from VUV FEL at DESY operating at 30 nm wavelength in the femtosecond regime , 2005, physics/0511234.

[3]  Mikhail Yurkov,et al.  Diffraction effects in the self-amplified spontaneous emission FEL , 2000 .

[4]  B. McNeil,et al.  X-ray free-electron lasers , 2010 .

[5]  R. Treusch,et al.  Desorption of ionic species from ice/graphite by femtosecond XUV free-electron laser pulses , 2010, Journal of physics. Condensed matter : an Institute of Physics journal.

[6]  W. H. Benner,et al.  Femtosecond diffractive imaging with a soft-X-ray free-electron laser , 2006, physics/0610044.

[7]  M. Yurkov,et al.  Properties of the third harmonic of the radiation from self-amplified spontaneous emission free electron laser , 2006 .

[8]  W. Schlotter,et al.  Longitudinal coherence measurements of an extreme-ultraviolet free-electron laser. , 2010, Optics letters.

[9]  I A Vartanyants,et al.  Transverse-coherence properties of the free-electron-laser FLASH at DESY. , 2008, Physical review letters.

[10]  J. Arthur,et al.  X-ray free-electron lasers , 2005 .

[11]  E. Saldin,et al.  Limitations of the transverse coherence in the self-amplified spontaneous emission FEL , 2001 .

[12]  D. Ratner,et al.  First lasing and operation of an ångstrom-wavelength free-electron laser , 2010 .

[13]  Ryszard S. Romaniuk,et al.  Operation of a free-electron laser from the extreme ultraviolet to the water window , 2007 .

[14]  Claudio Pellegrini,et al.  Collective instabilities and high-gain regime in a free electron laser , 1984 .

[15]  Helmut Zacharias,et al.  Sequential femtosecond X-ray imaging , 2011 .

[16]  M. V. Yurkov,et al.  Coherence properties of the radiation from X-ray free electron laser , 2006 .

[17]  C. Bostedt,et al.  Multistep ionization of argon clusters in intense femtosecond extreme ultraviolet pulses. , 2008, Physical review letters.

[18]  F Siewert,et al.  Spatio-temporal coherence of free electron laser pulses in the soft x-ray regime. , 2008, Optics express.

[19]  Frank Siewert,et al.  Direct autocorrelation of soft-x-ray free-electron-laser pulses by time-resolved two-photon double ionization of He , 2009 .

[20]  A. Singer,et al.  Coherence properties of hard x-ray synchrotron sources and x-ray free-electron lasers , 2009, 0907.4009.

[21]  Pellegrini,et al.  Spectrum, temporal structure, and fluctuations in a high-gain free-electron laser starting from noise. , 1994, Physical review letters.

[22]  Elke Plönjes,et al.  Single-shot terahertz-field-driven X-ray streak camera , 2009 .