A review of environment-dependent processes within FEL excited matter

In this review we discuss four examples of environment-dependent processes triggered by free-electron laser radiation within systems of various complexity. Those are: (i) non-thermal structural changes within irradiated solids, (ii) inverse bremsstrahlung during VUV irradiation of atomic clusters, (iii) shifts of ionic potentials due to a charged ion environment within a plasma, and (iv) fast thermalization of the electrons created after FEL irradiation. We show that FEL excitation enables access to a unique class of environment-influenced processes, depending on the radiation wavelength, pulse fluence and the structure of sample.