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Light manipulation at the nanoscale is essential both for fundamental science and modern technology. The quest to shorter lengthscales, however, requires the use of light wavelengths beyond the visible. In particular, in the extreme ultraviolet regime these manipulation capabilities are hampered by the lack of efficient optics, especially for polarization control. Here, we present a method to create periodic, polarization modulations at the nanoscale using a tailored configuration of the FERMI free electron laser and demonstrate its capabilities by comparing the dynamics induced by this polarization transient grating with those driven by a conventional intensity grating on a thin ferrimagnetic alloy. While the intensity grating signal is dominated by the thermoelastic response, the polarization grating excitation minimizes it, uncovering helicity-dependent responses previously undetected. We anticipate nanoscale polarization transient gratings to become useful for the study of physical, chemical and biological systems possessing chiral symmetry., Competing Interests: Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

The advent of free electron lasers has opened the opportunity to explore interactions between extreme ultraviolet (EUV) photons and collective excitations in solids. While EUV transient grating spectroscopy, a noncollinear four-wave mixing technique, has already been applied to probe coherent phonons, the potential of EUV radiation for studying nanoscale spin waves has not been harnessed. Here we report EUV transient grating experiments with coherent magnons in Fe/Gd ferrimagnetic multilayers. Magnons with tens of nanometers wavelengths are excited by a pair of femtosecond EUV pulses and detected via diffraction of a probe pulse tuned to an absorption edge of Gd. The results unlock the potential of nonlinear EUV spectroscopy for studying magnons and provide a tool for exploring spin waves in a wave vector range not accessible by established inelastic scattering techniques.

The relentless pursuit of understanding matter at ever-finer scales has pushed optical microscopy to surpass the diffraction limit and realize super-resolution microscopy, which enables visualizing structures shorter than the wavelength of the light emitted by the sample. In the present work, we harnessed extreme ultraviolet beams to create sub-μm grating structures, which were revealed by extreme ultraviolet structured illumination microscopy. We establish that the resolution extension is achievable in the extreme ultraviolet, thereby opening the door to significant resolution enhancement, mainly defined by the wavelength employed.

All-optical switching (AOS) results in ultrafast and deterministic magnetization reversal upon single laser pulse excitation, potentially supporting faster and more energy-efficient data storage. To explore the fundamental limits of achievable bit densities in AOS, we have used soft X-ray transient grating spectroscopy to study the ultrafast magnetic response of a GdFe alloy after a spatially structured excitation with a periodicity of 17 nm. The ultrafast spatial evolution of the magnetization in combination with atomistic spin dynamics and microscopic temperature model calculations allows us to derive a detailed phase diagram of AOS as a function of both the absorbed energy density and the nanoscale excitation period. Our results suggest that the minimum size for AOS in GdFe alloys, induced by a nanoscale periodic excitation, is around 25 nm and that this limit is governed by ultrafast lateral electron diffusion and by the threshold for optical damage.

Surface acoustic waves (SAWs) are excited by femtosecond extreme ultraviolet (EUV) transient gratings (TGs) in a room-temperature ferrimagnetic DyCo 5 alloy. TGs are generated by crossing a pair of EUV pulses from a free electron laser with the wavelength of 20.8 nm matching the Co M -edge, resulting in a SAW wavelength of Λ = 44 nm. Using the pump-probe transient grating scheme in reflection geometry, the excited SAWs could be followed in the time range of -10 to 100 ps in the thin film. Coherent generation of TGs by ultrafast EUV pulses allows to excite SAW in any material and to investigate their couplings to other dynamics, such as spin waves and orbital dynamics. In contrast, we encountered challenges in detecting electronic and magnetic signals, potentially due to the dominance of the larger SAW signal and the weakened reflection signal from underlying layers. A potential solution for the latter challenge involves employing soft x-ray probes, albeit introducing additional complexities associated with the required grazing incidence geometry., Competing Interests: The authors have no conflicts to disclose., (© 2024 Author(s).)

Nanophononic materials are characterized by a periodic nanostructuration, which may lead to coherent scattering of phonons, enabling interference and resulting in modified phonon dispersions. We have used the extreme ultraviolet transient grating technique to measure phonon frequencies and lifetimes in a low-roughness nanoporous phononic membrane of SiN at wavelengths between 50 and 100 nm, comparable to the nanostructure lengthscale. Surprisingly, phonon frequencies are only slightly modified upon nanostructuration, while phonon lifetime is strongly reduced. Finite element calculations indicate that this is due to coherent phonon interference, which becomes dominant for wavelengths between ~ half and twice the inter-pores distance. Despite this, vibrational energy transport is ensured through an energy flow among the coherent modes created by reflections. This interference of phonon echos from periodic interfaces is likely another aspect of the mutual coherence effects recently highlighted in amorphous and complex crystalline materials and, in this context, could be used to tailor transport properties of nanostructured materials., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

We used extreme ultraviolet (EUV) pulses to create transient gratings (TGs) with sub-100 nm spatial periodicity in a β-Ga_{2}O_{3} single crystal. The EUV TG launches acoustic modes parallel to the sample surface, whose dynamics were revealed via backward diffraction of a third, time-delayed, EUV pulse. In addition, the sharp penetration depth of EUV light launches acoustic modes along the surface normal with a broad wave vector spectrum. The dynamics of selected modes at a wave vector tangibly larger (≈1  nm^{-1}) than the TG one is detected in the time domain via the interference between the backward diffracted TG signal and the stimulated Brillouin backscattering of the EUV probe. While stimulated Brillouin backscattering of an optical probe was reported in previous EUV TG experiments, its extension to shorter wavelengths can be used as a contactless experimental tool for filling the gap between the wave vector range accessible by inelastic hard x-ray and thermal neutron scattering techniques, and the one accessible through Brillouin scattering of visible and UV light.

Dimensionality plays a key role in the emergence of ordered phases, such as charge density-waves (CDW), which can couple to, and modulate, the topological properties of matter. In this work, we study the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of the paradigmatic quasi-one-dimensional material (TaSe 4 ) 2 I, which exhibits a transition into an incommensurate CDW phase when cooled to just below room temperature, namely at T CDW = 263 K. We make use of both optical laser and free-electron laser (FEL) based time-resolved spectroscopies in order to study the effect of a selective excitation on the normal-state and on the CDW phases by probing the near-infrared/visible optical properties both along and perpendicularly to the direction of the CDW, where the system is metallic and insulating, respectively. Excitation of the core-levels by ultrashort X-ray FEL pulses at 47 eV and 119 eV induces reflectivity transients resembling those recorded when only exciting the valence band of the compound - by near-infrared pulses at 1.55 eV - in the case of the insulating sub-system. Conversely, the metallic sub-system displays relaxation dynamics which depend on the energy of photo-excitation. Moreover, excitation of the CDW amplitude mode is recorded only for excitation at a low-photon-energy. This fact suggests that the coupling of light to ordered states of matter can predominantly be achieved when directly injecting delocalized carriers in the valence band, rather than localized excitations in the core levels. Complementing this, table-top experiments allow us to prove the quasi-unidirectional nature of the CDW phase in (TaSe 4 ) 2 I, whose fingerprints are detected along its c -axis only. Our results provide new insights into the symmetry of the ordered phase of (TaSe 4 ) 2 I perturbed by a selective excitation, and suggest a novel approach based on complementary table-top and FEL spectroscopies for the study of complex materials.

The conformational space of antioxidant dihydrolipoic acid has been explored through the investigation of its pharmacophore, 1,3-propanedithiol. Five of the possible 25 non-equivalent isomers (namely: gGGg', gGGg, g'AGg, gAGg and g'AGg') were observed in the 59.6-74.4 GHz frequency region using free-jet absorption rotational spectroscopy. Furthermore, for three of them, the 34 S mono-substituted isotopologues were also detected in natural abundance. Theoretical simulations show that the balance of steric and electronic intramolecular interactions arises on a shallow conformational potential energy surface and suggest that in polar solvents the flexibility of the dithiol chain is greater than that in the isolated phase.