A critical challenge of pump-probe experiments with x-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) is accurate synchronization of x-ray and optical pulses. At the European XFEL we observed megahertz rate timing jitter of 24.0 ± 12.4 f s .

The commissioning of a terahertz-field-driven streak camera installed at the free-electron laser (FEL) FLASH at DESY in Hamburg, being able to deliver photon pulse duration as well as arrival time information with ∼10 fs resolution for each single XUV FEL pulse, is reported. Pulse durations between 300 fs and <15 fs have been measured for different FLASH FEL settings. A comparison between the XUV pulse arrival time and the FEL electron bunch arrival time measured at the FLASH linac section exhibits a correlation width of 20 fs r.m.s., thus demonstrating the excellent operation stability of FLASH. In addition, the terahertz-streaking setup was operated simultaneously to an alternative method to determine the FEL pulse duration based on spectral analysis. FLASH pulse duration derived from simple spectral analysis is in good agreement with that from terahertz-streaking measurement.

Pump–probe experiments at X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) facilities are a powerful tool for studying dynamics at ultrafast and longer timescales. Observing the dynamics in diverse scientific cases requires optical laser systems with a wide range of wavelength, flexible pulse sequences and different pulse durations, especially in the pump source. Here, the pump–probe instrumentation available for measurements at the Single Particles, Clusters, and Biomolecules and Serial Femtosecond Crystallography (SPB/SFX) instrument of the European XFEL is reported. The temporal and spatial stability of this instrumentation is also presented.

A set of electron time-of-flight spectrometers for high-resolution angle-resolved spectroscopy was developed for the Small Quantum Systems (SQS) instrument at the SASE3 soft X-ray branch of the European XFEL. The resolving power of this spectrometer design is demonstrated to exceed 10 000 (E/ΔE), using the well known Ne 1s ⁻¹3p resonant Auger spectrum measured at a photon energy of 867.11 eV at a third-generation synchrotron radiation source. At the European XFEL, a width of ∼0.5 eV full width at half-maximum for a kinetic energy of 800 eV was demonstrated. It is expected that this linewidth can be reached over a broad range of kinetic energies. An array of these spectrometers, with different angular orientations, is tailored for the Atomic-like Quantum Systems endstation for high-resolution angle-resolved spectroscopy of gaseous samples.

Self-amplified spontaneous emission (SASE) pulses delivered by free electron lasers (FELs) are inherently fluctuating sources; each pulse varies in energy, duration, arrival time and spectral shape. Therefore, there is strong demand for a full characterization of the properties of SASE radiation, which will facilitate more precise interpretation of the experimental data taken at SASE FELs. In this paper, we present an investigation into the fluctuations of pulse duration, spectral distribution, arrival time and pulse energy of SASE XUV pulses at FLASH, both on a shot-to-shot basis and on average over many pulses. With the aid of simulations, we derived scaling laws for these parameters and disentangled the statistical SASE fluctuations from accelerator-based fluctuations and measurement uncertainties.

This contribution presents the initial characterization of the pump-probe performance at the Small Quantum Systems (SQS) instrument of the European X-ray Free Electron Laser. It is demonstrated that time-resolved experiments can be performed by measuring the X-ray/optical cross-correlation exploiting the laser-assisted Auger decay in neon. Applying time-of-arrival corrections based on simultaneous spectral encoding measurements allow us to significantly improve the temporal resolution of this experiment. These results pave the way for ultrafast pump-probe investigations of gaseous media at the SQS instrument combining intense and tunable soft X-rays with versatile optical laser capabilities.