Ultrafast structural transitions in solids induced by X-ray free electron lasers
Dr. Victor Tkachenko

Date, Time
15.06, 15:00 - 16:00

Location
Link to MS Teams meeting

Ultrafast structural transitions in solids induced by X-ray free electron lasers

Victor Tkachenko ^1,2*

¹European XFEL GmbH,  22869 Schenefeld, Germany

²Center for Free-Electron Laser Science, DESY, 22607 Hamburg, Germany

*E-mail: victor.tkachenko@xfel.eu

Intense pulses from X-ray free-electron lasers (FELs) enable to transform solid materials into another state of matter, such as liquid, warm dense matter or plasma. Such transitions may occur exclusively or partially via non-thermal channels, thus, on ultrafast (femtosecond) time scales. Here we discuss recently studied, X-ray induced ultrafast non-thermal and thermal processes in solids: graphitization and amorphization of diamond, melting of silicon, radiation damage in Al₂O₃. These transitions were predicted by our hybrid codes XTANT, XTANT+ which combine tight-binding or density functional tight-binding, classical molecular dynamics, classical Monte-Carlo scheme and Boltzmann collision integral to properly keep track of all relevant microscopic processes within solid’s electronic system and lattice.  The respective experiments took place at FERMI@Elettra, SACLA and LCLS free-electron-laser facilities.