Table-top ultrafast x-ray microcalorimeter spectrometry for molecular structure

Published

March 26, 2013

Author(s)

Jens (. Uhlig, William B. Doriese, Joseph W. Fowler, Daniel S. Swetz, Carl D. Reintsema, Douglas A. Bennett, Leila R. Vale, Gene C. Hilton, Kent D. Irwin, Joel N. Ullom, Ilari Maasilta, Wilfred Fullagar, Niklas Gador, Sophie Canton, Kimmo Kinnunen, Villy Sundstrom

Abstract

This work presents an x-ray absorption measurement by use of ionizing radiation generated by a femtosecond pulsed laser source. The spectrometer was a microcalorimetric array whose pixels are capable of accurately measuring energies of individual radiation quanta. An isotropic continuum x-ray spectrum in the few-keV range was generated from a laser plasma source with a water-jet target. X rays were transmitted through a ferrocene powder sample to the detector, whose pixels have average photon energy resolution {Δ}E=3.14  eV full-width-at-half-maximum at 5.9 keV. The bond distance of ferrocene was retrieved from this first hard-x-ray absorption fine-structure spectrum collected with an energy-dispersive detector. This technique will be broadly enabling for time-resolved observations of structural dynamics in photoactive systems.

Citation

Physical Review Letters

Volume

110

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.138302

Keywords

laser-plasma, microcalorimeter array, ultrafast, chemistry, X-rays, energy dispersive, EXAFS, ferrocene

Citation

Uhlig, J. , Doriese, W. , Fowler, J. , Swetz, D. , Reintsema, C. , Bennett, D. , Vale, L. , Hilton, G. , Irwin, K. , Ullom, J. , Maasilta, I. , Fullagar, W. , Gador, N. , Canton, S. , Kinnunen, K. and Sundstrom, V. (2013), Table-top ultrafast x-ray microcalorimeter spectrometry for molecular structure, Physical Review Letters, [online], https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.138302 (Accessed October 30, 2025)