Development of the X-ray interferometer and the method of temporal synchronization of X-ray and optical pulse

Hasegawa, Noboru; Yamamoto, Minoru*; Terakawa, Kota*; Nishikino, Masaharu; Ochi, Yoshihiro; Minami, Yasuo*; Tomita, Takuro*; Kawachi, Tetsuya; Suemoto, Toru

We have developed a soft X-ray laser (SXRL) interferometer capable of the single-shot imaging of nano-scaled structure dynamics. The depth and lateral resolutions of the interferometer were about 1 nm and 1.8 micron, respectively. We observed the initial stage (50 ps) of the ablation process of the Pt surface pumped by a 70 fs Ti:Sapphire laser pulse. The expansion speed of the Pt surface (34 nm/50 ps) indicated that the nano-bubble structures were formed in the initial stage of the ablation. In order to observe the detailed dynamics, the precision of temporal synchronization between the pump and probe pulses was improved to be 3 ps by adopting a portion of the SXRL and pump beams as the time fiducials.