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Updated: Nov 20, 2025

Synthesis and Microdiffraction at Extreme Pressures and Temperatures
Published on: October 7, 2013
Using Diffuse Scattering to Observe X-Ray-Driven Nonthermal Melting
N J Hartley1,2, J Grenzer2, L Huang2
1SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
Abstract:
We present results from the SPring-8 Angstrom Compact free electron LAser facility, where we used a high intensity (∼10^{20} W/cm^{2}) x-ray pump x-ray probe scheme to observe changes in the ionic structure of silicon induced by x-ray heating of the electrons. By avoiding Laue spots in the scattering signal from a single crystalline sample, we observe a rapid rise in diffuse scattering and a transition to a disordered, liquidlike state with a structure significantly different from liquid silicon. The disordering occurs within 100 fs of irradiation, a timescale that agrees well with first principles simulations, and is faster than that predicted by purely inertial behavior, suggesting that both the phase change and disordered state reached are dominated by Coulomb forces. This method is capable of observing liquid scattering without masking signal from the ambient solid, allowing the liquid structure to be measured throughout and beyond the phase change.
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