@article{SokolowskiTintenBlomeBlumsetal., author = {Sokolowski-Tinten, Klaus and Blome, Christian and Blums, Juris and Dietrich, Clemens and Tarsevitch, Alexander and Horn-von Hoegen, Michael and von der Linde, Dietrich and Cavalleri, Andrea and Kammler, Martin and Uschmann, Ingo and Foerster, Eckhart}, title = {Femtosecond X-ray Diffraction Study of Large Amplitude Coherent Optical Phonons in Laser-Excited Bismuth}, series = {Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics, 1-6 June 2003, Baltimore, Maryland}, journal = {Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics, 1-6 June 2003, Baltimore, Maryland}, publisher = {Optical Society of America}, abstract = {Femtosecond time-resolved X-ray diffraction was used to directly study optical phonons in laser-excited Bismuth. A periodic modulation of the diffraction efficiency reveals initially coherent lattice distortions with atomic displacements of nearly 10\% of the nearest- neighbor-distance.}, language = {en} } @article{SokolowskiTintenBlomeBlumsetal., author = {Sokolowski-Tinten, Klaus and Blome, Christian and Blums, Juris and Cavalleri, Andrea and Dietrich, Clemens and Tarasevitch, Alexander and Uschmann, Ingo and F{\"o}rster, Eckhard and Kammler, Martin and Horn-von Hoegen, Michael and von der Linde, Dietrich}, title = {Femtosecond X-ray measurement of coherent lattice vibrations near the Lindemann stability limit}, series = {Nature}, volume = {422}, journal = {Nature}, number = {6929}, publisher = {Springer}, doi = {10.1038/nature01490}, pages = {287 -- 289}, abstract = {The study of phase-transition dynamics in solids beyond a time-averaged kinetic description requires direct measurement of the changes in the atomic configuration along the physical pathways leading to the new phase. The timescale of interest is in the range 10(-14) to 10(-12) s. Until recently, only optical techniques were capable of providing adequate time resolution, albeit with indirect sensitivity to structural arrangement. Ultrafast laser-induced changes of long-range order have recently been directly established for some materials using time-resolved X-ray diffraction. However, the measurement of the atomic displacements within the unit cell, as well as their relationship with the stability limit of a structural phase, has to date remained obscure. Here we report time-resolved X-ray diffraction measurements of the coherent atomic displacement of the lattice atoms in photoexcited bismuth close to a phase transition. Excitation of large-amplitude coherent optical phonons gives rise to a periodic modulation of the X-ray diffraction efficiency. Stronger excitation corresponding to atomic displacements exceeding 10 per cent of the nearest-neighbour distance-near the Lindemann limit-leads to a subsequent loss of long-range order, which is most probably due to melting of the material.}, language = {en} } @unpublished{CavalleriSidersTothetal., author = {Cavalleri, Andrea and Siders, Craig and Toth, Csaba and Squier, Jeff A. and Barty, C. P. J. and Wilson, K. R. and Sokolowski-Tinten, Klaus and von der Linde, Dietrich and Kammler, Martin and Horn- von Hoegen, Michael}, title = {Measurement of harmonic and anharmonic semi-conductor-lattice dynamics with ultrafast x-ray diffraction}, abstract = {Many fundamental processes in solids, such as heat transport and phase transitions involve atomic movement on ultrafast time-scales, but cannot be directly measured with visible light. Using ultrafast x-ray diffraction, atomic motion can be measured on its natural time-scale. Photo-excitation of bulk and layered semiconductors was achieved with 800-nm wavelength femtosecond laser pulses. Optical excitation triggers a chain of relaxation processes, causing rapid lattice heating, generation and propagation of stress/strain waves into the bulk and eventual anharmonic decay of coherent acoustic phonons into the thermal bath of the solid. While the first steps of carrier relaxation, excitation and decay of Raman-active optical phonons have been in the past characterized optically at surfaces, the bulk acoustic dynamics at longer times has not. We measure length scales of lattice excitation, thereby detecting ultrafast heat diffusion via fast electrons, coherent acoustic pulse propagation into the bulk or across buried interfaces and anharmonic damping of non-equilibrium acoustic phonons. The measurement is performed with sensitivity on lattice spacing of 10 femtometers (i.e., 3 nuclear diameters).}, language = {en} } @unpublished{SidersCavalleriTothetal., author = {Siders, Craig and Cavalleri, Andrea and Toth, Csaba and Squier Jeff A., and Barty, C. P. J. and Wilson, K. R. and Sokolowski-Tinten, Klaus and von der Linde, Dietrich and Kammler, Martin and Horn- von Hoegen, Michael}, title = {Ultrafast Nonthermal Melting of Femtosecond-laser-irradiated Germanium Measured by Ultrafast X-ray Diffraction}, abstract = {Many fundamental processes in nature, such as chemical reactions and phase transitions involve rearrangement of the constituent atoms. Such changes cannot be directly measured with visible light and occur transiently on time-scales comparable with the natural oscillation periods of atoms (femtoseconds to picoseconds). We present experiments on Ge-111 films irradiated with 100-fs 800-nm light pulses and probed by a time-delayed sub-ps x-ray pulse at 8 keV. After excitation of a dense electron-hole plasma within the 160-nm film, the ultrafast pathway of lattice disordering is measured as a function laser fluence. For close-to-threshold irradiation, inhomogeneous thermal melting, occurring via surface nucleation of the liquid phase and growth into the bulk determines the dynamics of the solid-to-liquid phase transition. For excitation at about twice the melting threshold, a nonthermal pathway, starting from a highly excited cold solid and relaxing into a hot liquid causes ultrafast melting. At long time delays, nearly perfect recrystallization of a (111) crystal is observed.}, language = {en} } @article{LuNicoulShymanovichetal., author = {Lu, Wei and Nicoul, Matthieu and Shymanovich, Uladzimir and Tarsevitch, Alexander and Kammler, Martin and Horn-von Hoegen, Michael and von der Linde, Dietrich and Sokolowski-Tinten, Klaus}, title = {Extreme Phonon Softening in Laser-excited Bismuth - Towards an Inverse Peierls-transition}, series = {MRS Online Proceedings Library}, volume = {1230}, journal = {MRS Online Proceedings Library}, publisher = {Springer}, doi = {10.1557/PROC-1230-MM03-05}, abstract = {Large amplitude coherent optical phonons have been investigated in laser-excited Bismuth by means of femtosecond time-resolved X-ray diffraction. For absorbed laser fluences above 2 mJ/cm2, the experimental data reveal an extreme softening of the excited A1g-mode down to frequencies of about 1 THz, only 1/3 of the unperturbed A1g-frequency. At even stronger excitation the measured diffraction signals no longer exhibit an oscillatory behavior presenting strong indication that upon intense laser-excitation the Peierls-distortion, which defines the equilibrium structure of Bismuth, can be transiently reversed.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{SokolowskiTintenBlomeDietrichetal., author = {Sokolowski-Tinten, Klaus and Blome, Christian and Dietrich, Clemens and Blums, Juris and Horn-von Hoegen, Michael and von der Linde, D. and Cavalleri, Andrea and Squier, Jeff A. and Kammler, Martin}, title = {Structural dynamics in laser-excited solids investigated with femtosecond x-ray diffraction}, series = {2002 Summaries of Papers Presented at the Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference, 19-24 May 2002, Long Beach, CA, USA}, booktitle = {2002 Summaries of Papers Presented at the Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference, 19-24 May 2002, Long Beach, CA, USA}, publisher = {IEEE}, doi = {10.1109/QELS.2002.1031182}, pages = {115 -- 116}, abstract = {Summary form only given. Ultrashort x-ray pulses offer a unique combination of atomic-scale spatial and temporal resolution, which permits direct measurements of structural transients on an ultrafast time scale. Using time-resolved X-ray diffraction with femtosecond, multi-keV X-ray pulses we have studied transient lattice dynamics in optically excited semiconductors.}, language = {en} } @article{SokolowskiTintenBlomeDietrichetal., author = {Sokolowski-Tinten, Klaus and Blome, Christian and Dietrich, Clemens and Tarasevitch, A. and Horn-von Hoegen, Michael and von der Linde, D. and Cavalleri, Andrea and Squier, Jeff A. and Kammler, Martin}, title = {Femtosecond x-ray measurement of ultrafast melting and large acoustic transients}, series = {Physical review letters}, volume = {87}, journal = {Physical review letters}, publisher = {APS}, doi = {10.1103/PhysRevLett.87.225701}, abstract = {Time-resolved x-ray diffraction with ultrashort ( approximately 300 fs), multi-keV x-ray pulses has been used to study the femtosecond laser-induced solid-to-liquid phase transition in a thin crystalline layer of germanium. Nonthermal melting is observed to take place within 300-500 fs. Following ultrafast melting we observe strong acoustic perturbations evolving on a picosecond time scale.}, language = {en} } @article{SokolowskiTintenBlomeDietrichetal., author = {Sokolowski-Tinten, Klaus and Blome, Christian and Dietrich, Clemens and Tarasevitch, A. and Horn-von Hoegen, Michael and von der Linde, D. and Cavalleri, Andrea and Squier, Jeff A. and Kammler, Martin}, title = {Femtosecond time-resolved X-ray diffraction study of ultrafast structural dynamics in laser-excited solids}, series = {International Conference on Ultrafast Phenomena, 12 May 2002, Vancouver Canada}, volume = {71}, journal = {International Conference on Ultrafast Phenomena, 12 May 2002, Vancouver Canada}, publisher = {Optica Publishing Grou}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-642-59319-2_10}, pages = {36 -- 38}, abstract = {Time-resolved x-ray diffraction with sub-300 fs, multi-keV x-ray pulses was used to study ultrafast lattice dynamics in laser-irradiated germanium and bismuth. In bismuth strong excitation of optical phonons is observed prior to disordering of the material.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{SokolowskiTintenBlomeBlumsetal., author = {Sokolowski-Tinten, Klaus and Blome, Christian and Blums, Juris and Shymanovich, Uladzimir and Nicoul, Matthieu and Cavalleri, Andrea and Tarasevitch, A. and Horn-von Hoegen, Michael and Kammler, Martin and von der Linde, Dietrich}, title = {Ultrafast X-ray diffraction}, series = {Ultrafast Phenomena XIV}, volume = {79}, booktitle = {Ultrafast Phenomena XIV}, editor = {Kobayashi, Tetsuro}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {Berlin, Heidelberg}, isbn = {978-3-540-27213-7}, doi = {10.1007/3-540-27213-5_53}, pages = {170 -- 174}, abstract = {In the last few years the generation of femtosecond pulses in the X-ray regime has become possible. These ultrashort X-ray pulses have enabled femtosecond time- resolution to be extended to X-rays.}, language = {en} }