The temporal resolution of pump-flash interactions in the femtosecond-attosecond (fs-as) regime is limited by the characteristic time constants of the excited states in the detector material. If the relaxation time constant is appreciably longer that the time interval between the pump and probe signals the response of the detector material to the probe represents a temporal convolution with the pump and probe responses, setting a lower limit on the resolution to which the interval between the two pulses can be measured. In most of the solid state ultrafast detection schemes that are being considered for the ultrashort pulse x-ray sources under current development at SLAC and elsewhere the characteristic time constants are related to the bound states of the atoms comprising the material or to the relaxation times of phase transitions or charge carrier populations of the lattice, setting a probable lower limit on the attainable resolution on the order of {approx}0.1 ps. In this paper we consider a novel detection principle based on the excitation of specially prepared unbound states in an ionized plasma with high pump and probe fields, and estimate its potential for extending the lower limit of resolution into the attosecond (as) regime
