Hard X-rays as pump and probe of atomic motion in oxide glasses

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that intense X-ray beams can alter the microscopic dynamics of oxide glasses while leaving metallic glasses unaffected, highlighting the need to consider beam effects in X-ray experiments and opening new avenues for material manipulation.

Contribution

It reveals that high flux X-ray beams induce microscopic motion in oxide glasses without affecting metallic glasses, providing new insights into beam-material interactions.

Findings

X-ray flux affects oxide glass dynamics

Metallic glasses show no flux dependence

High flux X-rays can be used to pump material dynamics

Abstract

Nowadays powerful X-ray sources like synchrotrons and free-electron lasers are considered as ultimate tools for probing microscopic properties in materials. However, the correct interpretation of such experiments requires a good understanding on how the beam affects the properties of the sample, knowledge that is currently lacking for intense X-rays. Here we use X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy to probe static and dynamic properties of oxide and metallic glasses. We find that although the structure does not depend on the flux, strong fluxes do induce a non-trivial microscopic motion in oxide glasses, whereas no such dependence is found for metallic glasses. These results show that high fluxes can alter dynamical properties in hard materials, an effect that needs to be considered in the analysis of X-ray data but which also gives novel possibilities to study materials properties since the beam can not only be used to probe the dynamics but also to pump it.