Radiation damage of CH, NH and OH clusters induced by irradiation with X-ray free electron lasers

Kai, Takeshi   

In X-ray free electron laser (XFEL) application, the analysis of three-dimensional structures of single bio-molecules is one of the critical issues. In this case, target samples are damaged by photo-absorption ionization, Compton scattering, Auger decay, electron impact and field ionization by the irradiation of high-intense X-rays. To obtain optimal condition for the three-dimensional structure determination, we performed a parameter survey for the radiation damage using various XFEL's parameters and target radii of CH, NH and OH clusters (pseudo biomolecules). We found that the upper limit of X-ray fluxes became about 10 photons/mm at the X-ray energy of 12.4 keV, and the radiation damage of the clusters slightly increased as atomic number of atoms in targets increased.