Near- and Extended-Edge X-Ray-Absorption Fine-Structure Spectroscopy Using Ultrafast Coherent High-Order Harmonic Supercontinua

Abstract

Recent advances in high-order harmonic generation have made it possible to use a tabletop-scale setup to produce spatially and temporally coherent beams of light with bandwidth spanning 12 octaves, from the ultraviolet up to x-ray photon energies >1.6 keV. Here we demonstrate the use of this light for x-ray-absorption spectroscopy at the K- and L-absorption edges of solids at photon energies near 1 keV. We also report x-ray-absorption spectroscopy in the water window spectral region (284-543 eV) using a high flux high-order harmonic generation x-ray supercontinuum with 10^{9} photons/s in 1% bandwidth, 3 orders of magnitude larger than has previously been possible using tabletop sources. Since this x-ray radiation emerges as a single attosecond-to-femtosecond pulse with peak brightness exceeding 10^{26} photons/s/mrad^{2}/mm^{2}/1% bandwidth, these novel coherent x-ray sources are ideal for probing the fastest molecular and materials processes on femtosecond-to-attosecond time scales and picometer length scales.