Determining the transmission of thin foil filters for soft X-ray free-electron laser radiation: an ablation imprint approach (Conference Presentation)

An accurate transmission measurement of thin foils (usually made of elemental metals and/or semiconductors), which routinely are used as attenuators in soft x-ray beamlines, end-stations and instruments, represents a long standing problem over the wide experimentation field with photon beams, see for example [1-4]. Such foils are also frequently utilized for blocking long wavelength emission, i.e., UV-Vis-IR radiation, from plasma and high order harmonic sources, whilst soft x-rays emitted from the source pass through the foil with only a slight attenuation. Despite the enormous amount of data available in the literature, e.g., Henke’s tables [5], measurements made on real foils often provide surprising results. In this study, a procedure based on the ablation imprints method is utilized for determination of soft x-ray filter transmission, namely the f-scan technique [6,7]. This technique combines the GMD (Gas Monitor Detector) pulse energy measurement and attenuation of the beam by foils (made of different metallic/semiconducting elements of varying thickness) with areas of ablation imprints created on a suitable target, e.g. PMMA – Poly(methyl methacrylate). The results show only a partial overlap with transmission values found in Henke’s tables. Nevertheless, a good agreement with transmission values determined by conventional radiometry techniques at synchrotron radiation beamlines has been found. Such a difference between the experimentally obtained values and transmissions calculated for a pure element is usually explained by spontaneous formation of oxidized layers on the filter surface and in the near-surface layer and their possible alteration by intense FEL radiation. The first results obtained with Al, Nb, Zr and Si filters at FLASH/FLASH2 (Free-electron LASer in Hamburg tuned to 13.5 nm) facilities will be shown and discussed in this presentation. References 1. F. R. Powell, P. W. Vedder, J. F. Lindblom, S. F. Powell: Thin film filter performance for extreme ultraviolet and x-ray applications, Opt. Eng. 29, 614 (1990). 2. E. M. Gullikson, P. Denham, S. Mrowka, J. H. Underwood: Absolute photo absorption measurements of Mg, Al, and Si in the soft x-ray region below the L2,3 edges, Phys. Rev. B 49, 16 283 (1994). 3. R. Keenan, C. L. S. Lewis, J. S. Wark, E. Wolfrum: Measurements of the XUV transmission of aluminium with a soft x-ray laser, J. Phys. B 35, L449 (2002). 4. A. Joseph, M. H. Modi, A. Singh, R. K. Gupta, G. S. Lodha: Analysis of soft x-ray/VUV transmission characteristics of Si and Al filters, AIP Conf. Ser. 1512, 498 (2013). 5. B. L. Henke, E. Gullikson, J. C. Davis: X-ray interactions: photoabsorption, scattering, transmission, and reflection at E = 50-30000 eV, Z =1-92, At. Data Nucl. Data Tables 54, 181 (1993). 6. J. Chalupsky et al.: Spot size characterization of focused non-Gaussian X-ray laser beams, Opt. Express 18, 27836 (2010). 7. J. Chalupský, T. Burian, V. Hajkova, L. Juha, T. Polcar, J. Gaudin, M. Nagasono, R. Sobierajski, M. Yabashi, J. Krzywinski: Fluence scan: an unexplored property of a laser beam, Opt. Express 21, 26363 (2013).