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At least 685 records · Page 38

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DOE OSTI2015

High average power, highly brilliant laser-produced plasma source for soft X-ray spectroscopy

In this work, a novel laser-produced plasma source is presented which delivers pulsed broadband soft X-radiation in the range between 100 and 1200 eV. The source was designed in view of long operating hours, high stability, and cost effectiveness. It relies on a rotating and translating metal target and achieves high stability through an on-line monitoring device using a four quadrant extreme ultraviolet diode in a pinhole camera arrangement. The source can be operated with three different laser pulse durations and various target materials and is equipped with two beamlines for simultaneous experiments. Characterization measurements are presented with special emphasis on the source position and emission stability of the source. As a first application, a near edge X-ray absorption fine structure measurement on a thin polyimide foil shows the potential of the source for soft X-ray spectroscopy.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

DOE OSTI2016

VUV and soft x-ray ionization of a plant volatile: Vanillin (C{sub 8}H{sub 8}O{sub 3})

Plant volatiles are emitted by plants in response to several forms of stress, including interaction with energetic photons. In the present work, we discuss the interaction of extreme UV and soft X-ray photons with a plant volatile, vanillin. The single and double (multiple) ionization of the vanillin molecule have been studied for the first time using time-of-flight mass spectrometry and VUV and soft X-ray photons (synchrotron radiation, at 12.0 eV, 21.2 eV, 130 eV, 310 eV, 531 eV, and 550 eV). At 12.0 and 21.2 eV, only singly charged species are observed and the parent ion, C{sub 8}H{sub 8}O{sub 3}{sup +}, is the dominant species. Energy differences for some selected fragments were calculated theoretically in this energy region. At 130 eV, direct double and triple ionization of the valence electrons may occur. The fragmentation increases and CHO{sup +} becomes one of the main cations in the mass spectrum. The molecular ion is still the dominant species, but other fragments, such as C{sub 6}H{sub 5}O{sup +}, begin to present similar intensities. At 310 eV, C 1s electrons may be ionized and Auger processes give rise to dissociative doubly ionized cations. Ionization around the O 1s edge has been studied both at the 531 eV resonance and above the ionization edge. Resonant and normal Auger processes play a significant role in each case and a large fragmentation of the molecule is observed at both photon energies, with intense fragments such as CHO{sup +} and CH{sub 3}{sup +} being clearly observed. A near edge X-ray absorption fine structure spectrum of the vanillin molecule was obtained around the O 1s ionization threshold. In addition, the fragmentation of vanillin has also been studied using a fast beam of electrons (800 eV), for the sake of comparison.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

DOE OSTI2016

Innovative diffraction gratings for high-resolution resonant inelastic soft x-ray scattering spectroscopy

High-resolution Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering (RIXS) requires diffraction gratings with very exacting characteristics. The gratings should provide both very high dispersion and high efficiency which are conflicting requirements and extremely challenging to satisfy in the soft x-ray region for a traditional grazing incidence geometry. To achieve high dispersion one should increase the groove density of a grating; this however results in a diffraction angle beyond the critical angle range and results in drastic efficiency loss. The problem can be solved by use of multilayer coated blazed gratings (MBG). In this work we have investigated the diffraction characteristics of MBGs via numerical simulations and have developed a procedure for optimization of grating design for a multiplexed high resolution imaging spectrometer for RIXS spectroscopy to be built in sector 6 at the Advanced Light Source (ALS). We found that highest diffraction efficiency can be achieved for gratings optimized for 4{sup th} or 5{sup th} order operation. Fabrication of such gratings is an extremely challenging technological problem. We present a first experimental prototype of these gratings and report its performance. High order and high line density gratings have the potential to be a revolutionary new optical element that should have great impact in the area of soft x-ray RIXS.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

DOE OSTI2016

Quantitative resonant soft x-ray reflectivity of ultrathin anisotropic organic layers: Simulation and experiment of PTCDA on Au

Resonant soft X-ray reflectivity at the carbon K edge, with linearly polarized light, was used to derive quantitative information of film morphology, molecular arrangement, and electronic orbital anisotropies of an ultrathin 3,4,9,10-perylene tetracarboxylic dianhydride (PTCDA) film on Au(111). The experimental spectra were simulated by computing the propagation of the electromagnetic field in a trilayer system (vacuum/PTCDA/Au), where the organic film was treated as an anisotropic medium. Optical constants were derived from the calculated (through density functional theory) absorption cross sections of the single molecule along the three principal molecular axes. These were used to construct the dielectric tensor of the film, assuming the molecules to be lying flat with respect to the substrate and with a herringbone arrangement parallel to the substrate plane. Resonant soft X-ray reflectivity proved to be extremely sensitive to film thickness, down to the single molecular layer. The best agreement between simulation and experiment was found for a film of 1.6 nm, with flat laying configuration of the molecules. The high sensitivity to experimental geometries in terms of beam incidence and light polarization was also clarified through simulations. The optical anisotropies of the organic film were experimentally determined and through the comparison with calculations, it was possible to relate them to the orbital symmetry of the empty electronic states.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

DOE OSTI2022

An incompressible Eulerian method for fluid–structure interaction with mixed soft and rigid solids

Here, we present a general simulation approach for incompressible fluid–structure interactions in a fully Eulerian framework using the reference map technique. The approach is suitable for modeling one or more rigid or finitely deformable objects or soft objects with rigid components interacting with the fluid and with each other. It is also extended to control the kinematics of structures in fluids. The model is based on our previous Eulerian fluid–soft solver [Rycroft et al., “Reference map technique for incompressible fluid–structure interaction,” J. Fluid Mech. 898, A9 (2020)] and generalized to rigid structures by constraining the deformation-rate tensor in a projection framework. Several numerical examples are presented to illustrate the capability of the method.

42 ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2012

Aperiodic multilayer structures in soft X-ray radiation optics

We review the works related to the development of aperiodic multilayer structures - optical elements for the soft X-ray range. The potentialities of aperiodic multilayer mirrors as regards reflection of soft X-ray radiation in a broad wavelength range, first and foremost at normal radiation incidence, as well as the capabilities of broadband polariser mirrors are investigated. The results of multiparametric optimisation and experimental results for Mo/Si aperiodic mirrors ({lambda} {>=} 12.5 nm) as well as calculations for several promising material pairs (Pd/Y, Ag/Y, etc.) for {lambda} {<=} 12.5 nm are outlined. The effect of transition layers on the reflectivity is considered, in particular by taking into account the smooth variation of the permittivity near interfacial boundaries. The use of broadband mirrors in laser-plasma spectroscopic experiments is discussed.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

DOE OSTI2023

Soft, malleable double diamond twin

A twin boundary (TB) is a common low energy planar defect in crystals including those with the atomic diamond structure (C, Si, Ge, etc.). We study twins in a self-assembled soft matter block copolymer (BCP) supramolecular crystal having the double diamond (DD) structure, consisting of two translationally shifted, interpenetrating diamond networks of the minority polydimethyl siloxane block embedded in a polystyrene block matrix. The coherent, low energy, mirror-symmetric double tubular network twin has one minority block network with its nodes offset from the (222) TB plane, while nodes of the second network lie in the plane of the boundary. The offset network, although at a scale about a factor of 10 3 larger, has precisely the same geometry and symmetry as a (111) twin in atomic single diamond where the tetrahedral units spanning the TB retain nearly the same strut (bond) lengths and strut (bond) angles as in the normal unit cell. In DD, the second network undergoes a dramatic restructuring—the tetrahedral nodes transform into two new types of mirror-symmetric nodes (pentahedral and trihedral) which alternate and link to form a hexagonal mesh in the plane of the TB. The collective reorganization of the supramolecular packing highlights the hierarchical structure of ordered BCP phases and emphasizes the remarkable malleability of soft matter.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

DOE OSTI2010

THE SOFT X-RAY AND NARROW-LINE EMISSION OF Mrk 573 ON KILOPARSEC SCALES

We present a study of the circumnuclear region of the nearby Seyfert galaxy Mrk 573 using Chandra, XMM-Newton, and Hubble Space Telescope (HST) data. We have studied the morphology of the soft (<2 keV) X-rays comparing it with the [O III] and H{alpha} HST images. The soft X-ray emission is resolved into a complex extended region. The X-ray morphology shows a biconical region extending up to 12 arcsec (4 kpc) in projection from the nucleus. A strong correlation between the X-rays and the highly ionized gas seen in the [O III]{lambda}5007 A image is reported. Moreover, we have studied the line intensities detected with the XMM-Newton Reflection Grating Spectrometer (RGS) and used them to fit the low-resolution EPIC/XMM-Newton and ACIS/Chandra spectra. The RGS/XMM-Newton spectrum is dominated by emission lines of C VI, O VII, O VIII, Fe XVII, and Ne IX, among other highly ionized species. A good fit is obtained using these emission lines found in the RGS/XMM-Newton spectrum as a template for Chandra spectra of the nucleus and extended emission, coincident with the cone-like structures seen in the [O III]/H{alpha} map. The photoionization model Cloudy provides a reasonable fit for both the nuclear region and the cone-like structures showing that the dominant excitation mechanism is photoionization. For the nucleus the emission is modeled using two phases: a high ionization [log (U) = 1.23] and a low ionization [log (U) = 0.13]. For the high-ionization phase the transmitted and reflected components are in a 1:2 ratio, whereas for the low ionization the reflected component dominates. For the extended emission, we successfully reproduced the emission with two phases. The first phase shows a higher ionization parameter for the northwest (log (U) = 0.9) than for the southeast cone (log (U) = 0.3). Moreover, this phase is transmission dominated for the southeast cone and reflection dominated for the northwest cone. The second phase shows a low-ionization parameter (log (U) = -3) and is rather uniform for northwest and southeast cones and equally distributed in reflection and transmission components. In addition, we have also derived the optical/infrared spectral energy distribution (SED) of the nucleus from high spatial resolution images of Mrk 573. The nuclear optical/infrared SED of the nucleus has been modeled by a clumpy torus model. The torus bolometric luminosity agrees very well with the active galactic nucleus (AGN) luminosity inferred from the observed hard X-ray spectrum. The optical depth along the line of sight expected from the torus modeling indicates a high neutral hydrogen column density in agreement with the classification of the nucleus of Mrk 573 as a Compton-thick AGN.