UC Irvine

Ultrafast time resolved x-ray absorption and x-ray diffraction have made it possible to measure, in real time, transient phenomena structures and processes induced by optical femtosecond pulses. To illustrate the power of these experimental methods, we present several representative examples from the literature. (I) Time resolved measurements of photon/electron coupling, electron/phonon interaction, pressure wave formation, melting and recrystallization by means of time resolved x-ray diffraction. (II) Ultrafast x-ray absorption, EXAFS, for the direct measurement of the structures and their kinetics, evolved during electron transfer within molecules in liquid phase. (III) XANES experiments that measure directly pathway for the population of high spin states and the study of the operating mechanism of dye activated TiO 2 solar cell devices. The construction and use of novel polycapillary x-ray lenses that focus and collimate hard x-rays efficiently are described. © 2012 American Institute of Physics.