Time resolved spectroscopy with femtosecond soft-x-ray pulses

The most challenging application of time resolved spectroscopy is to directly observe the structural and electronic dynamics. Here we present the combination of x-ray absorption spectroscopy with laser driven x-ray sources, offering atomic spatial and temporal resolution. Our new approaches for optimization of laser driven x-ray sources resulted in the demonstration of spatially coherent sub-20 fs x-ray pulses in a range up to several keV. We excited polycrystalline silicon with an ultrashort laser pulse and characterized the collective motion of atoms with time resolved x-ray absorption spectroscopy at a temporal resolution of less than 20 fs. Finally, we have shown the feasibility of probing the dynamics of the electronic structure of silicon and carbon with near edge x-ray absorption spectroscopy.