Ablation of Organic Molecular Solids by Focused Soft X-Ray Free-Electron Laser Radiation.

The first soft X-ray free-electron laser has recently been put into operation at DESY in Hamburg. Tunable soft X-ray coherent radiation can be generated at the FLASH (Free-electron LASer in Hamburg; formerly known as VUV FEL or TTF2 FEL). In the interaction experiments reported here, the laser system provided ~ 25-fs, ~ 10-μ J pulses of 32-nm radiation. We irradiated thin (500 nm) layers of poly (methyl methacrylate) - PMMA deposited on a silicon substrate by single, focused FLASH pulses. The pulse energy was adjusted using a gas attenuator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]