Ablation of single-crystalline cesium iodide by extreme ultraviolet capillary-discharge laser

Extreme ultraviolet (XUV) capillary-discharge lasers (CDLs) are a suitable source for the efficient, clean ablation of ionic crystals, which are obviously difficult to ablate with conventional, long-wavelength lasers. In the present study, a single crystal of cesium iodide (CsI) was irradiated by multiple, focused 1.5-ns pulses of 46.9-nm radiation delivered from a compact XUV-CDL device operated at either 2-Hz or 3-Hz repetition rates. The ablation rates were determined from the depth of the craters produced by the accumulation of laser pulses. Langmuir probes were used to diagnose the plasma plume produced by the focused XUV-CDL beam. Both the electron density and electron temperature were sufficiently high to confirm that ablation was the key process in the observed CsI removal. Moreover, a CsI thin film on MgO substrate was prepared by XUV pulsed laser deposition; a fraction of the film was detected by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.Web of Science65421020

Real-time spatial characterization of micrometer-sized X-ray free-electron laser beams focused by bendable mirrors

A real-time and accurate characterization of the X-ray beam size is essential to enable a large variety of different experiments at free-electron laser facilities. Typically, ablative imprints are employed to determine shape and size of μm-focused X-ray beams. The high accuracy of this state-of-the-art method comes at the expense of the time required to perform an ex-situ image analysis. In contrast, diffraction at a curved grating with suitably varying period and orientation forms a magnified image of the X-ray beam, which can be recorded by a 2D pixelated detector providing beam size and pointing jitter in real time. In this manuscript, we compare results obtained with both techniques, address their advantages and limitations, and demonstrate their excellent agreement. We present an extensive characterization of the FEL beam focused to ≈1 μm by two Kirkpatrick-Baez (KB) mirrors, along with optical metrology slope profiles demonstrating their exceptionally high quality. This work provides a systematic and comprehensive study of the accuracy provided by curved gratings in real-time imaging of X-ray beams at a free-electron laser facility. It is applied here to soft X-rays and can be extended to the hard X-ray range. Furthermore, curved gratings, in combination with a suitable detector, can provide spatial properties of μm-focused X-ray beams at MHz repetition rate

Magnetic resonance imaging - analysis of hydratation laboratory rats CNS

Záměrem této práce je pojednat o možnostech zobrazení edému mozku u malých hlodavců, za použití sekvence SpinEcho - DWI v magnetické rezonanci. Popsat teorii MRI a použité sekvence DWI pro zobrazování na malých savcích. Sledování průběhu experimentu při tvoření edému mozku potkanů pomocí farmakologických činitelů a následného ovlivnění tvorby edému pomocí látek na bázi kortikoidů. Cílem je zkvalitnit proces vyhodnocování pomocí vývoje ADC mapy.Aim of this thesis is to present about possibilities of the small rodents brain edema imaging, using the magnetic resonance SpinEcho - DWI sequence anddescribe the MRI theory and DWI sequences used for small mammals imaging. Studying the experiment progress of edema inception triggered by pharmacological agents and following edema creation influence with corticoidal based agents. The objective is to improve quality of evaluation by means of ADC map development

Proton-induced direct and indirect damage of plasmid DNA

International audienc

Soft x-ray free-electron laser induced damage to inorganic scintillators

An irreversible response of inorganic scintillators to intense soft x-ray laser radiation was investigated at the FLASH (Free-electron LASer in Hamburg) facility. Three ionic crystals, namely, Ce:YAG (cerium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet), PbWO4 (lead tungstate), and ZnO (zinc oxide), were exposed to single 4.6 nm ultra-short laser pulses of variable pulse energy (up to 12 μJ) under normal incidence conditions with tight focus. Damaged areas produced with various levels of pulse fluences, were analyzed on the surface of irradiated samples using differential interference contrast (DIC) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The effective beam area of 22.2 ± 2.2 μm2 was determined by means of the ablation imprints method with the use of poly(methyl methacrylate) - PMMA. Applied to the three inorganic materials, this procedure gave almost the same values of an effective area. The single-shot damage threshold fluence was determined for each of these inorganic materials. The Ce:YAG sample seems to be the most radiation resistant under the given irradiation conditions, its damage threshold was determined to be as high as 660.8 ± 71.2 mJ/cm2. Contrary to that, the PbWO4 sample exhibited the lowest radiation resistance with a threshold fluence of 62.6 ± 11.9 mJ/cm2. The threshold for ZnO was found to be 167.8 ± 30.8 mJ/cm2. Both interaction and material characteristics responsible for the damage threshold difference are discussed in the article

Data publication: Ion emission from warm dense matter produced by irradiation with a soft x-ray free-electron laser

Data set on the ion emission of different materials. Each dataset is separate and titled with the chemical symbol or abbreviation of the specific material

Ion emission from warm dense matter produced by irradiation with a soft x-ray free-electron laser

International audienceWe report on an experiment performed at the FLASH2 free-electron laser (FEL) aimed at producing warm dense matter via soft x-ray isochoric heating. In the experiment, we focus on study of the ions emitted during the soft x-ray ablation process using time-of-flight electron multipliers and a shifted Maxwell–Boltzmann velocity distribution model. We find that most emitted ions are thermal, but that some impurities chemisorbed on the target surface, such as protons, are accelerated by the electrostatic field created in the plasma by escaped electrons. The morphology of the complex crater structure indicates the presence of several ion groups with varying temperatures. We find that the ion sound velocity is controlled by the ion temperature and show how the ion yield depends on the FEL radiation attenuation length in different materials