Peter Gaal, Daniel Schick, Marc Herzog, Andre Bojahr, Roman Shayduk, Jevgeni Goldshteyn, Wolfram Leitenberger, Ionela Vrejoiu, Dmitry Khakhulin, Michael Wulff, Matias Bargheer
- A new concept for shortening hard X-ray pulses emitted from a third-generation synchrotron source down to few picoseconds is presented. The device, called the PicoSwitch, exploits the dynamics of coherent acoustic phonons in a photo-excited thin film. A characterization of the structure demonstrates switching times of <= 5 ps and a peak reflectivity of similar to 10(-3). The device is tested in a real synchrotron-based pump-probe experiment and reveals features of coherent phonon propagation in a second thin film sample, thus demonstrating the potential to significantly improve the temporal resolution at existing synchrotron facilities.
