This PDF file contains the front matter associated with SPIE Proceedings Volume 8504, including the Title Page, Copyright Information, Table of Contents, and the Conference Committee listing.

Profiling structured beams produced by X-ray free-electron lasers (FELs) is crucial to both maximizing signal intensity for weakly scattering targets and interpreting their scattering patterns. Earlier ablative imprint studies describe how to infer the X-ray beam profile from the damage that an attenuated beam inflicts on a substrate. However, the beams in-situ profile is not directly accessible with imprint studies because the damage profile could be different from the actual beam profile. On the other hand, although a Shack-Hartmann sensor is capable of in-situ profiling, its lenses may be quickly damaged at the intense focus of hard X-ray FEL beams. We describe a new approach that probes the in-situ morphology of the intense FEL focus. By studying the translations in diffraction patterns from an ensemble of randomly injected sub-micron latex spheres, we were able to determine the non-Gaussian nature of the intense FEL beam at the Linac Coherent Light Source (SLAC National Laboratory) near the FEL focus. We discuss an experimental application of such a beam-profiling technique, and the limitations we need to overcome before it can be widely applied.

FERMI@Elettra, the Italian Free Electron Laser (FEL) source, is in an advanced commissioning phase, having already delivered radiation down to the endstations. The facility is routinely using the low energy branch (FEL1) to produce photons in the 65–20 nm range, while the 20–4 nm range will be covered by FEL2 that is now being commissioned. A dedicated system to collect, diagnose, transport and focus the radiation (PADReS) is used to provide informations about the photon beam intensity, position, spectral content, transverse coherence, and so on. The experience gathered so far, as well as the most recent results both from the diagnostic section and the beam manipulation part are presented here.

High resolution (λ/Δλ ~10,000) 1D imaging x-ray spectroscopy using a spherically bent crystal and a 2D hybrid pixelarray detector (PAD) is used world wide for Doppler measurements of ion-temperature (Ti) and plasma flow-velocityprofiles in magnetic confinement fusion (MCF) plasmas. Meter sized plasmas are diagnosed with cm spatial resolution and 10 ms time resolution. This concept can also be used as a diagnostic of small sources, such as inertial confinement fusion (ICF) plasmas and targets on x-ray light source beam lines, with spatial resolution of microns. A new concept of using matched pairs of spherically bent crystals for monochromatic stigmatic 2D x-ray imaging of mm sized sources offers the possibility of spatial resolution of microns and large solid angle, relative to that achieved with pinhole imaging. Other potential applications of the 2D imaging schemes include x-ray lithography and x-ray microscopy for biological and materials science research. Measurements from MFE plasmas, as well as laboratory experiments and ray tracing computations validating the 1D imaging spectroscopy and 2D x-ray imaging techniques will be presented.

For the European XFEL [1] an x-ray split- and delay-unit (SDU) is built covering photon energies from 5 keV up to 20 keV. This SDU will enable time-resolved x-ray pump / x-ray probe experiments as well as sequential diffractive imaging [2] on a femtosecond to picosecond time scale. Further, direct measurements of the temporal coherence properties will be possible by making use of a linear autocorrelation. The set-up is based on geometric wavefront beam splitting, which has successfully been implemented at an autocorrelator at FLASH [3]. The x-ray FEL pulses will be split by a sharp edge of a silicon mirror coated with Mo/B₄C multi layers. Both partial beams will then pass variable delay lines. For different wavelengths the angle of incidence onto the multilayer mirrors will be adjusted in order to match the Bragg condition. For a photon energy of hν = 20 keV a grazing angle of θ = 0.57° has to be set, which results in a footprint of the beam (6σ) on the mirror of l = 345 mm. At this photon energy the reflectance of a Mo/B₄C multi layer coating with a multi layer period of d = 3 nm and N = 200 layers amounts to R = 0.92. For a photon energy of hν = 5 keV a smaller size of the footprint of l = 244 mm is calculated due to the steeper grazing angle of θ = 2.28°. In order to enhance the maximum transmission for photon energies of hν = 8 keV and below, a Ni/B₄C multilayer coating can be applied beside the Mo/B₄C coating for this spectral region. Because of the different incidence angles, the path lengths of the beams will differ as a function of wavelength. Hence, maximum delays between +/- 3.7 ps at hν = 20 keV and up to +/- 44 ps at hν = 5 keV will be possible.

The unprecedented x-ray peak power available at the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) makes possible, for the first time, experiments in which a sample is excited by x-rays, then probed with a delayed x-ray pulse as the excitation relaxes on the femtosecond timescale. A mirror-based x-ray split and delay (XRSD) instrument under construction at the LCLS will enable forefront science through time-resolved study of fundamental ultrafast x-ray matter interactions in the 500-2000 eV photon energy range. The XRSD will add x-ray pump/x-ray probe capability to the AMO and SXR beamlines, allowing experiments expected to have an impact on basic energy sciences research in areas such as atomic and molecular science, chemical physics, nanoscience, ultrafast science, and imaging. The XRSD splits the LCLS x-ray pulse into two portions by wavefront division, delays one by a user-selected time 0-100 femtoseconds (±0.1 fs,) then recombines them at a sample for x-ray pump/x-ray probe experiments on the AMO and SXR beamlines. Two mirrors located immediately after the AMO Kirkpatrick-Baez mirrors will split the FEL wavefront; one of these mirrors will be translated and rotated to produce a variable delay. The energy of both pulses can be independently measured on each shot, aiding data analysis. The XRSD will be integrated into the AMO/SXR control system and data acquisition system for user control. After commissioning, the device will be available for LCLS user proposals at the AMO and SXR endstations.

The Linear Coherent Light Source (LCLS), a free electron laser operating from 250eV to10keV at 120Hz, is opening windows on new science in biology, chemistry, and solid state, atomic, and plasma physics^1,2. The FEL provides coherent x-rays in femtosecond pulses of unprecedented intensity. This allows the study of materials on up to 3 orders of magnitude shorter time scales than previously possible. Many experiments at the LCLS require a detector that can image scattered x-rays on a per-shot basis with high efficiency and excellent spatial resolution over a large solid angle and both good S/N (for single-photon counting) and large dynamic range (required for the new coherent x-ray diffractive imaging technique³). The Cornell-SLAC Pixel Array Detector (CSPAD) has been developed to meet these requirements. SLAC has built, characterized, and installed three full camera systems at the CXI and XPP hutches at LCLS. This paper describes the camera system and its characterization and performance.

New generation Synchrotron Radiation (SR) sources and Free Electron Lasers (FEL) require novel concepts of beam diagnostics to keep photon beams under surveillance, asking for simultaneous position and intensity monitoring. To deal with high power load and short time pulses provided by these sources, novel materials and methods are needed for the next generation BPMs.

Diamond is a promising material for the production of semitransparent in situ X-ray BPMs withstanding the high dose rates of SR rings and high energy FELs. We report on the development of freestanding, single crystal CVD diamond detectors. Performances in both low and radio frequency SR beam monitoring are presented. For the former, sensitivity deviation was found to be approximately 2%; a 0.05% relative precision in the intensity measurements and a 0.1-μm precision in the position encoding have been estimated. For the latter, single-shot characterizations revealed sub-nanosecond rise-times and spatial precisions below 6 μm, which allowed bunch-by-bunch monitoring in multi-bunch operation.

Preliminary measurements at the Fermi FEL have been performed with this detector, extracting quantitative intensity and position information for FEL pulses (~ 100 fs, energy 12 ÷ 60 eV), with a long-term spatial precision of about 85 μm; results on FEL radiation damages are also reported. Due to their direct, low-energy band gap, InGaAs quantum well devices too may be used as fast detectors for photons ranging from visible to X-ray. Results are reported which show the capability of a novel InGaAs/InAlAs device to detect intensity and position of 100-fs-wide laser pulses.

Current and upcoming X-ray sources, such as the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC, USA), the SPring-8 Angstrom Compact Free Electron Laser (SACLA, Japan), or the X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL, Germany) will provide X-ray beams with outstanding properties.^{1, 2} Short and intense X-ray pulses of about 50 fs time duration and even shorter will push X-ray science to new frontiers such as, e. g., in high-resolution X-ray imaging, high-energy-density physics or in dynamical studies based on pump-probe techniques.

Fast processes in matter often require high-resolution imaging capabilities either by magnified imaging in direct space or diffractive imaging in reciprocal space. In both cases highest resolutions require focusing the X-ray beam.^{3, 4} In order to further develop high-resolution imaging at free-electron laser sources we are planning a platform to carry out high-resolution phase contrast imaging experiments based on Beryllium compound refractive X-ray lenses (Be-CRLs) at the Matter in Extreme Conditions (MEC) endstation of the LCLS. The instrument provides all necessary equipment to induce high pressure shock waves by optical lasers. The propagation of a shock wave is then monitored with an X-ray Free Electron Laser (FEL) pulse by magnified phase contrast imaging. With the CRL optics, X-ray beam sizes in the sub-100nm range are expected, leading to a similar spatial resolution in the direct coherent projection image. The experiment combines different state-of-the art scientific techniques that are currently available at the LCLS. In this proceedings paper we describe the technical developments carried out at the LCLS in order to implement magnified X-ray phase contrast imaging at the MEC endstation.

Localized charge, spin and orbital degrees of freedom can compete with electronic itinerancy and such competition lies at the heart of emergent material properties. To study these electronic orderings, resonant soft X-ray scattering (RSXS) spectroscopy has been demonstrated as one of the most powerful direct probes, and its time-resolved capability can be implemented through pump-probe technique. The ultrafast/ultra-intense X-ray pulses from LCLS can be used as the probe in the time-resolved RSXS experiments, but the inherent fluctuations in intensity and timing between pulses can degrade the superior temporal resolution. To overcome such fluctuations, a compact fast CCD (cFCCD) was developed to enable shot-by-shot data acquisitions and a dedicated RSXS endstation, constructed to house this cFCCD and other single-channel photon detectors, has been extensively used at both ALS and LCLS. Time-resolved RSXS experiments on La_1.75Sr_0.25 NiO₄ nickelate have revealed an unexpected transient behavior of charge and spin ordering (CO/SO) states. After 800nm laser excitation, the CO can be fully suppressed at higher pump fluence while SO remains detectable, creating a transient state that is not accessible by tuning thermodynamic variables. Furthermore, two distinct time scales are identified in the recovery of CO and can be attributed to the amplitude (fast) and phase (slow) dynamics of order parameter. A new version of cFCCD, with eight times the detection area and the readout electronics moved into vacuum side to minimize the pickup noise, has been developed and will be incorporated into the RSXS endstation.

X-ray free-electron lasers enable high-resolution imaging of biological materials by using short enough pulses to outrun many of the effects of radiation damage. Experiments conducted at the LCLS have obtained diffraction data from single particles and protein nanocrystals at doses to the sample over 3 GGy. The details of the interaction of the X-ray FEL pulse with the sample determine the limits of this new paradigm for imaging. Recent studies suggest that in the case of crystalline samples, such as protein nanocrystals, the atomic displacements and loss of bound electrons in the crystal (due to the high X- ray intensity) has the effect of gating the diffraction signal, and hence making the experiment less radiation sensitive. Only the incident photon intensity in the first part of the pulse, before the Bragg diffraction has died out, is relevant to acquiring signal and the rest of the pulse will mainly contribute to a diffuse background. In this work we use a plasma based non-local thermodynamic equilibrium code to explore the displacement and the ionization of a protein nanocrystal at various X-ray wavelengths and intensities.

A hard X-ray delay line device capable of splitting single FEL X-ray pulses into two adjustable fractions and recombining them with the goal of performing X-ray Photon Correlation Spectroscopy and pump - probe type studies was designed. The performance of the device has been verified at the XPP and XCS instruments of LCLS. The measured throughput of the device at 7.9 keV is 3.6%. The coherence properties of the LCLS beam passing through the delay line were investigated by analyzing speckle patterns produced by single LCLS pulses. A high speckle contrast of 0.69 was found, indicating the feasibility of performing coherence based experiments with the delay line.

The successful implementation of superconducting LINAC technology at the European XFEL will boost the time averaged X-RAY power density substantially above current values. In fact, the XFEL will operate at repetition rates of up to 4.5MHz. However, this high pulse rate occurs only during 600μs long bursts of 10Hz repetition rate, rendering up to 27000 pulses per second. Matching this peculiar burst mode operation is a requirement also for the pump-probe femtosecond laser used in experiments. There is currently no commercially available femtosecond laser technology offering this kind of output at close to mJ-level energies per pulse and sub-20fs pulse width. We will outline the scheme of the pump-probe laser currently under development at the European XFEL. The laser design is based on a noncollinear optical parametric amplifier (NOPA) which will be pumped by sub-picosecond pulses from a high power, frequency-doubled Yb:YAG slab amplifier, delivering up to 20kW of fundamental average power during a burst. The design aims at highest possible flexibility regarding intra-burst rep-rates and pulse energies. Also, the use of uncompressed as well as compressed NOPA pump pulses at fundamental wavelength will enhance the flexibility in experiments.

A recently demonstrated single-shot measurement of the relative delay between x-ray FEL pulses and optical laser pulses has now been improved to ~10 fs rms error and has successfully been demonstrated for both soft and hard x-ray pulses. It is based on x-ray induced step-like reduction in optical transmissivity of a semiconductor membrane (Si₃N₄). The transmissivity is probed by an optical continuum spanning 450 - 650 nm where spectral chirp provides a mapping of the step in spectrum to the arrival time of the x-ray pulse relative to the optical laser system.

Providing the flattop (uniform) or other intensity distributions of short-pulse laser beam by irradiating photocathode of FEL is a technique that is frequently considered as a way to improve performance of FEL. This task can be easily solved with using beam shaping optics, for example, the field mapping refractive beam shapers like piShaper. The operational principle of these devices presumes transformation of laser beam intensity from Gaussian to flattop one with high flatness of output wavefront, saving of beam consistency, providing collimated output beam of low divergence, high transmittance, extended depth of field, negligible residual wave aberration, and achromatic design provides capability to work with ultra-short pulse lasers having broad spectrum. With using the same piShaper it is possible to realize various beam profiles like flattop, inverse Gauss or super Gauss by simple variation of input beam diameter; this feature makes these devices a powerful tool in reaching various effects of generation of an electron beam. This paper will describe some design basics of refractive beam shapers of the field mapping type and optical layouts of their applying in systems of FEL photocathode irradiation. Examples of real implementations and experimental results will be presented as well.

X-ray Free-Electron-Laser (XFEL) facilities like the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) in the USA, SACLA in Japan, and the European XFEL under construction in Germany are 4th generation light sources which allow research of at the same time extremely small structures (Ångström resolution) and extremely fast phenomena (femtosecond resolution). Unlike the pulses from a conventional optical laser, the radiation in these sources is created by the Self-Amplified Spontaneous Emission (SASE) process when electron bunches pass through very long segmented undulators. The shot noise at the origin of this process leads to significant pulse-to-pulse variations of pulse intensity, spectrum, wavefront, temporal properties etc. so that for user experiments an online monitoring of these properties is mandatory. Additionally, the adjustment of the long segmented undulators requires dedicated diagnostics such as an undulator commissioning spectrometer and spontaneous radiation analysis. The extreme brilliance and resulting single-shot damage potential are difficult to handle for any XFEL diagnostics. Apart from the large energy range of operation of the facility from 280eV to 25keV in FEL fundamental, the particular challenge for the European XFEL diagnostics is the high intra bunch train photon pulse repetition rate of 4.5MHz, potentially causing additional damage by high heat loads and making shot-to-shot diagnostics very demanding. This presentation reports on the facility concepts, recent progress in instrumentation development, and the choices to compromise diagnostics performance between resolution/accuracy on one hand and shot-to-shot capabilities and energy range on the other.

We report the design of a single-shot transmissive spectrometer for spectral measurements of the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) operating in the mode of Self-Amplified Spontaneous Emission (SASE). The spectrometer was constructed using an ultra-thin and bent silicon single-crystal operating in the symmetric Bragg geometry. It was shown to be capable of recording the single-shot LCLS spectra while transmitting the majority of the incident flux to downstream experimental stations. The spectrometer used the Si (111) reflection for capturing the full SASE spectrum, and was then configured the high resolution mode using the Si (333) for resolving single spikes in the power spectral density.

The European X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL.EU) under construction will provide highly brilliant soft to hard X-ray (<280 eV - <20 keV) radiation with an intra-bunch train repetition rate of 4.5 MHz by employing the self-amplified spontaneous emission process. The resulting statistical fluctuations of important beam characteristics makes pulse-to-pulse diagnostics data of the photon beam a mandatory reference during user experiments. We present our concepts of analysing the photoemission from rare gases with a time-of-flight spectrometer for non-invasive, pulse-to-pulse measurements of the photon spectrum and polarization with a special emphasis on real-time processing with a low latency of ≤ 10−⁵ s.

The advent of X-ray Free-electron Laser (FEL) such as the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) has and will continue to enable breakthroughs and discoveries in a wide range of scientific disciplines including physics, chemistry, structural biology, and material science. It has created high demand on user beamtime that is often left unfulfilled. We report here the fabrication, characterization and X-ray measurements of ultra-thin silicon single-crystal membranes for potentially beam-sharing the LCLS beam. Using a special fabrication process, samples of (111), (110), and (100) orientations were made with thicknesses ranging from 5 to 20 μm. Both high-resolution rocking curves and white-beam topographic data were first obtained using synchrotron X-rays, demonstrating near ideal diffraction qualities. Subsequent tests using the full LCLS FEL beam revealed lattice distortions from beam-induced membrane vibrations, which were then shown to be effectively reduced by ambient air or with smaller membrane dimensions. These findings are paving a way for a practical beam-sharing implementation at LCLS in the near future.

At the European X-ray Free Electron Laser facility one‐ or two‐ Si(111) channel (cut) crystal X‐ray monochromator (Kmonochromator) are planned for photon beam based alignment: gap tuning of the undulator segments and phase tuning of the phase shifters during commissioning and maintenance of the undulators. A prototype device has been built using a single channel-cut crystal and was characterized at PETRAIII synchrotron (at P01, which is the only beamline with two undulator segments) by applying different undulator adjustment methods, intended for the European XFEL, that use imaging and intensity detection. This paper presents the setup and the first results from the experimental qualification of the K-monochromator prototype.