Characterization of soft X-ray FEL pulse duration with two-color photoelectron spectroscopy

The pulse duration of soft X-ray free-electron laser (FEL) pulses of SACLA BL1 (0.2–0.3 nC per bunch, 0.5–0.8 MeV) were characterized by photoelectron sideband measurements. The intensity of the He 1 s−1 photoelectron sidebands generated by a near-infrared femtosecond laser was measured as a function of the time delay between the two pulses using an arrival time monitor. From the width of the cross-correlation trace thus derived, the FEL pulse duration was evaluated to be 28 ± 5 fs full width at half-maximum in the photon energy range between 40 eV and 120 eV.