Author: ["Bob Nagler","Ulf Zastrau","Roland R. Fäustlin","Sam M. Vinko","Thomas Whitcher","A. J. Nelson","Ryszard Sobierajski","Jacek Krzywinski","Jaromir Chalupsky","Elsa Abreu","Saša Bajt","Thomas Bornath","Tomas Burian","Henry Chapman","Jaroslav Cihelka","Tilo Döppner","Stefan Düsterer","Thomas Dzelzainis","Marta Fajardo","Eckhart Förster","Carsten Fortmann","Eric Galtier","Siegfried H. Glenzer","Sebastian Göde","Gianluca Gregori","Vera Hajkova","Phil Heimann","Libor Juha","Marek Jurek","Fida Y. Khattak","Ali Reza Khorsand","Dorota Klinger","Michaela Kozlova","Tim Laarmann","Hae Ja Lee","Richard W. Lee","Karl-Heinz Meiwes-Broer","Pascal Mercere","William J. Murphy","Andreas Przystawik","Ronald Redmer","Heidi Reinholz","David Riley","Gerd Röpke","Frank Rosmej","Karel Saksl","Romain Schott","Robert Thiele","Josef Tiggesbäumker","Sven Toleikis","Thomas Tschentscher","Ingo Uschmann","Hubert J. Vollmer","Justin S. Wark"]
CITE.CC academic search helps you expand the influence of your papers.
Abstract
Saturable absorption is a phenomenon readily seen in the optical and infrared wavelengths. It has never been observed in core-electron transitions owing to the short lifetime of the excited states involved and the high intensities of the soft X-rays needed. We report saturable absorption of an L-shell transition in aluminium using record intensities over 1016 W cm−2 at a photon energy of 92 eV. From a consideration of the relevant timescales, we infer that immediately after the X-rays have passed, the sample is in an exotic state where all of the aluminium atoms have an L-shell hole, and the valence band has approximately a 9 eV temperature, whereas the atoms are still on their crystallographic positions. Subsequently, Auger decay heats the material to the warm dense matter regime, at around 25 eV temperatures. The method is an ideal candidate to study homogeneous warm dense matter, highly relevant to planetary science, astrophysics and inertial confinement fusion. The first experimental demonstration of saturable absorption in core-electron transitions in aluminium paves the way for investigating warm dense matter, which potentially has an important role in planetary science and the realization of inertial confinement fusion.Cite this article
Bob Nagler et al.., Nagler, B., Zastrau, U. et al. Turning solid aluminium transparent by intense soft X-ray photoionization. Nature Phys 5, 693–696 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1341 