Four-wave-mixing experiments and beyond: the TIMER/mini-TIMER setups at FERMI

The development of free electron laser (FEL) sources, which provide extreme ultraviolet (XUV) and soft x-ray radiation of unprecedented coherence and almost transform-limited pulse structure, has opened up the realm of XUV/x-ray non-linear optics. In particular, XUV four-wave-mixing (XFWM) experiments may allow, e.g., to probe correlations among low-energy excitations and core states, and to access the "mesoscopic" wavevector range (0.1-1 nm-1), inaccessible so far and fundamental to investigate nanostructures and disordered systems. In this manuscript we report on the latest advances and future developments of the TIMER setup at FERMI (Elettra, Italy), specifically conceived for XFWM experiments. In particular, we discuss the improvements on the XUV-probe and on the pump transport. Moreover, TIMER and mini-TIMER (a test setup available at the DiProI end station) are also suitable for time-resolved second order nonlinear experiments, which are intrinsically surface sensitive due to symmetry restrictions. We hereby discuss the foreseen extension to the XUV of interface specific probing of electronic processes, for example charge and energy transfer, with chemical specificity.