Elimination of X-Ray Diffraction through Stimulated X-Ray Transmission

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Elimination of X-Ray Diffraction through Stimulated X-Ray Transmission

B. Wu, T. Wang, C. E. Graves, D. Zhu, W. F. Schlotter, J. J. Turner, O. Hellwig, Z. Chen, H. A. Dürr, A. Scherz, and J. Stöhr

Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 027401 – Published 6 July 2016

Abstract

X-ray diffractive imaging with laterally coherent x-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) pulses is increasingly utilized to obtain ultrafast snapshots of matter. Here we report the amazing disappearance of single-shot charge and magnetic diffraction patterns recorded with resonantly tuned, narrow bandwidth XFEL pulses. Our experimental results reveal the exquisite sensitivity of single-shot charge and magnetic diffraction patterns of a magnetic film to the onset of field-induced stimulated elastic x-ray forward scattering. The loss in diffraction contrast, measured over 3 orders of magnitude in intensity, is in remarkable quantitative agreement with a recent theory that is extended to include diffraction.

Received 11 April 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.117.027401

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Free-electron lasers Magnetic multilayers

Coherent X-ray scattering Resonant inelastic x-ray scattering X-ray absorption spectroscopy

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

B. Wu¹, T. Wang², C. E. Graves¹, D. Zhu³, W. F. Schlotter³, J. J. Turner³, O. Hellwig⁴, Z. Chen⁵, H. A. Dürr³, A. Scherz^6,*, and J. Stöhr^3,†

¹SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Department of Applied Physics, Stanford, California 94035, USA
²SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Department of Material Science and Engineering, Stanford, California 94035, USA
³SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA
⁴HGST, a Western Digital Company, 3403 Yerba Buena Road, San Jose, California 95135, USA
⁵SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, and Department of Physics, Stanford, California 94035, USA
⁶European XFEL GmbH, Albert-Einstein-Ring 19, 22761 Hamburg, Germany