Related papers: Pulse-to-pulse wavefront sensing at free-electron …
We present a direct measurement of the nanoscale dynamics of plasma mirrors using wavefront measurement techniques. This two-dimensional measurement, performed via pump-probe diagnostics, enables the reconstruction of the three-dimensional…
Analytic expressions for the fields of a radially polarized, ultrashort and tightly focused laser pulse propagating in a linear-response plasma are derived and discussed. The fields are obtained from solving the inhomogenous wave equations…
Polarized X-rays allow for imaging birefringent or dichroic properties of materials with nanometric resolution. To disentangle these properties from the electronic density, either a polarization analyzer or several measurements with…
We present a method for a complete characterization of a femtosecond ultraviolet pulse when a fundamental near-infrared beam is also available. Our approach relies on generation of second harmonic from the pre-characterized fundamental,…
The Free-Electron Laser (FEL) FLASH offers the worldwide still unique capability to study ultrafast processes with high-flux, high-repetition rate XUV and soft X-ray pulses. The vast majority of experiments at FLASH are of pump-probe type.…
Digital cameras and displays utilise picture elements (pixels) that perform a single function: detecting or emitting light intensity. To exploit the full information content of electromagnetic waves, more advanced elements are required.…
The dispersion scan (d-scan) technique is extended to measurement of the timedependent polarization state of ultrashort laser pulses. In the simplest implementation for linearly polarized ultrashort pulses, the d-scan technique records the…
We report on a novel electro-optic device for the diagnostics of high repetition rate laser systems. It is composed of a microwave receiver and of a second order nonlinear crystal, whose irradiation with a train of short laser pulses…
Delivering sub-micrometer particles to an intense x-ray focus is a crucial aspect of single-particle diffractive-imaging experiments at x-ray free-electron lasers. Enabling direct visualization of sub-micrometer aerosol particle streams…
Continuous wavefront sensing benefits space observatories in on-orbit optical performance maintenance. To measure the phase of a wavefront, phase retrieval is an attractive technique as it uses multiple point spread function (PSF) images…
X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) as the world's brightest light sources provide ultrashort X-ray pulses with a duration typically in the order of femtoseconds. Recently, they have approached and entered the attosecond regime, which holds…
Ultra-high intensity femtosecond lasers at focus are now routinely used for relativistic motion of charged particles with peak intensities over 10^18W/cm^2. Such high-field experiments are very sensitive to the value of the peak intensity.…
The use of Wavefront Sensors (WFS) is nowadays fundamental in the field of instrumental optics. This paper discusses the principle of an original and recently proposed new class of WFS. Their principle consists in evaluating the slopes of…
Diffraction of light at lateral inhomogenities is a central process in the near-field studies of nanoscale phenomena, especially the propagation of surface waves. Theoretical description of this process is extremely challenging due to…
We report on the development of an ultrafast Transmission Electron Microscope based on a laser-driven cold-field emission source. We first describe the instrument before reporting on numerical simulations of the laser-driven electron…
X-ray Free Electron Lasers (XFEL) are revolutionary photons sources, whose ultrashort, brilliant pulses are expected to allow single molecule diffraction experiments providing structural information on the atomic length scale. This ultimate…
We experimentally demonstrate that pairs of time-delayed ultrabright and ultrashort X-ray pulses of two different colors, delivered by modern X-ray Free Electron Lasers, can provide two time-delayed snapshots of a sample. We introduce…
The generation of high-power radiation in the terahertz (THz) regime using free-electron lasers (FELs) is challenging due to strong diffraction and pronounced slippage effects. These constraints often limit the achievable pulse duration and…
Terahertz microscopy has attracted attention owing to distinctive characteristics of the THz frequency region, particularly non-ionizing photon energy, spectral fingerprint, and transparency to most nonpolar materials. Nevertheless, the…
Birefringence, an inherent characteristic of optically anisotropic materials, is widely utilized in various imaging applications ranging from material characterizations to clinical diagnosis. Polarized light microscopy enables…