Simultaneous bright- and dark-field X-ray microscopy at X-ray free electron lasers

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Condensed Matter Physics
• X-ray Microscopy

Background:

• Microstructural characterization of solid materials is crucial for understanding mechanical and physical properties.
• Existing microscopy tools are often limited to surface studies and cannot capture bulk material dynamics.
• Synchrotron X-ray diffraction and dark field X-ray microscopy (DFXM) offer nm-resolution but are limited by long integration times.

Purpose of the Study:

• To extend DFXM capabilities to X-ray free electron lasers (XFELs) for ultrafast, high-resolution structural analysis.
• To develop a multi-modal ultrafast high-resolution X-ray microscope for probing bulk material dynamics.
• To demonstrate the capability of XFEL DFXM for studying reversible and irreversible lattice dynamics.

Main Methods:

• Implementation of DFXM at X-ray free electron laser facilities.
• Development of a novel setup combining DFXM with simultaneous bright field microscopy.
• Utilizing high photon flux from XFELs for structural characterization at femtosecond timescales.

Main Results:

• Achieved structural characterization with 100 fs resolution, significantly faster than synchrotron-based methods.
• Demonstrated simultaneous probing of density changes and structural dynamics within the same sample volume.
• Successfully tested the multi-modal microscope at two XFELs, providing initial data on lattice dynamics.

Conclusions:

• XFEL-based DFXM overcomes the temporal limitations of synchrotron techniques for studying material dynamics.
• The developed multi-modal microscope provides unprecedented spatiotemporal resolution for bulk material analysis.
• This technique opens new avenues for investigating ultrafast phenomena in solid materials.