Saturable absorption of an x-ray free-electron-laser heated solid-density aluminum plasma

D S Rackstraw; O Ciricosta; S M Vinko; B Barbrel; T Burian; J Chalupský; B I Cho; H-K Chung; G L Dakovski; K Engelhorn; V Hájková; P Heimann; M Holmes; L Juha; J Krzywinski; R W Lee; S Toleikis; J J Turner; U Zastrau; J S Wark

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.015003

Saturable absorption of an x-ray free-electron-laser heated solid-density aluminum plasma

Phys Rev Lett. 2015 Jan 9;114(1):015003. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.015003. Epub 2015 Jan 9.

Authors

D S Rackstraw¹, O Ciricosta¹, S M Vinko¹, B Barbrel², T Burian³, J Chalupský³, B I Cho⁴, H-K Chung⁵, G L Dakovski⁶, K Engelhorn², V Hájková³, P Heimann⁶, M Holmes⁶, L Juha³, J Krzywinski⁶, R W Lee⁷, S Toleikis⁸, J J Turner⁶, U Zastrau⁹, J S Wark¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics, Clarendon Laboratory, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PU, United Kingdom.
² Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
³ Institute of Physics ASCR, Na Slovance 2, 18221 Prague 8, Czech Republic.
⁴ Department of Physics and Photon Science, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, Gwangju 500-712, Republic of Korea and Center for Relativistic Laser Science, Institute for Basic Science (IBS), Gwangju 500-712, Republic of Korea.
⁵ Atomic and Molecular Data Unit, Nuclear Data Section, IAEA, P.O. Box 100, A-1400 Vienna, Austria.
⁶ SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
⁷ Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
⁸ Deutsches-Elektronensynchrotron DESY, Notkestrasse 85, 22603 Hamburg, Germany.
⁹ SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA and IOQ, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Max-Wien-Platz 1, 07743 Jena, Germany.

PMID: 25615475
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.015003

Abstract

High-intensity x-ray pulses from an x-ray free-electron laser are used to heat and probe a solid-density aluminum sample. The photon-energy-dependent transmission of the heating beam is studied through the use of a photodiode. Saturable absorption is observed, with the resulting transmission differing significantly from the cold case, in good agreement with atomic-kinetics simulations.