Attosecond inner-shell lasing at angstrom wavelengths

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Linker, Thomas M.; Halavanau, Aliaksei; Kroll, Thomas; Benediktovitch, Andrei; Zhang, Yu; Michine, Yurina; Chuchurka, Stasis; Abhari, Zain; Ronchetti, Daniele; Fransson, Thomas; Weninger, Clemens; Fuller, Franklin D.; Aquila, Andy; Alonso-Mori, Roberto; Boutet, Sebastien; Guetg, Marc W.; Marinelli, Agostino; Lutman, Alberto A.; Yabashi, Makina; Inoue, Ichiro; Osaka, Taito; Yamada, Jumpei; Inubushi, Yuichi; Yamaguchi, Gota; Hara, Toru; Babu, Ganguli; Salpekar, Devashish; Sayed, Farheen N.; Ajayan, Pulickel M.; Kern, Jan; Yano, Junko; Yachandra, Vittal K.; Kling, Matthias F.; Pellegrini, Claudio; Yoneda, Hitoki; Rohringer, Nina; Bergmann, Uwe
• 署名单位: Stanford University; United States Department of Energy (DOE); SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory; University of Wisconsin System; University of Wisconsin Madison; Stanford University; United States Department of Energy (DOE); SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory; Stanford University; United States Department of Energy (DOE); SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory; Helmholtz Association; Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY); University of Electro-Communications - Japan; University of Hamburg; Friedrich Schiller University of Jena; Royal Institute of Technology; Stanford University; United States Department of Energy (DOE); SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory; Lund University; RIKEN; Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute; University of Hamburg; University of Osaka; Rice University; United States Department of Energy (DOE); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Stanford University
• 刊物名称: Nature
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0028-1876
• DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09105-9
• 发表日期: 2025-06-26
• 关键词: x-ray laser; spectroscopy; atoms

摘要

Since the invention of the laser, nonlinear effects such as filamentation(1), Rabi cycling(2,3) and collective emission(4) have been explored in the optical regime, leading to a wide range of scientific and industrial applications(5, 6, 7-8). X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) have extended many optical techniques to X-rays for their advantages of & aring;ngstrom-scale spatial resolution and elemental specificity(9). An example is XFEL-driven inner-shell K alpha(1) (2p(3/2) -> 1s(1/2)) X-ray lasing in elements ranging from neon to copper, which has been used for nonlinear spectroscopy and development of new X-ray laser sources(10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15-16). Here we show that strong lasing effects similar to those in the optical regime can occur at 1.5-2.1 & Aring; wavelengths during high-intensity (>10(19) W cm(-2)) XFEL-driven K alpha(1) lasing of copper and manganese. Depending on the temporal XFEL pump pulse substructure, the resulting X-ray pulses (about 10(6)-10(8) photons) can exhibit strong spatial inhomogeneities and spectral splitting, inhomogeneities and broadening. Three-dimensional Maxwell-Bloch calculations(17) show that the observed spatial inhomogeneities result from X-ray filamentation and that the broad spectral features are driven by sub-femtosecond Rabi cycling. Our simulations indicate that these X-ray pulses can have pulse lengths of less than 100 attoseconds and coherence properties that provide opportunities for quantum X-ray optics applications.