Nuclear Resonances in X-ray Waveguides

by Leon Merten Lohse
Doctoral thesis
Date of Examination:2024-06-14
Date of issue:2025-06-12
Advisor:Prof. Dr. Tim Salditt
Referee:Prof. Dr. Tim Salditt
Referee:Prof. Dr Ralf Röhlsberger
Persistent Address: http://dx.doi.org/10.53846/goediss-11324

 

 

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Abstract

English

Hard X-rays generally only interact very weakly with matter, so that tissue, for example, is quite transparent to them. However, this makes the controlled manipulation of X-ray light particularly challenging. While many functionalities for visible and infrared light can nowadays be accommodated in integrated optical components on a microscopic scale on semiconductor substrates, macroscopic crystal optics are usually still required for X-ray light, despite the substantially smaller wavelength. Yet, similar to fiber optics for visible light, X-ray waveguides can guide X-ray light, whereby it is confined in one or two dimensions to a length scale of just a few 10 nm. This dissertation deals fundamentally with X-ray waveguides and the interaction of X-ray light with resonant quantum emitters within them. In particular, Mössbauer isotopes such as iron-57 are considered, whose atomic nuclei have very long-lived metastable states that can be excited with X-rays. On the one hand, a comprehensive theory of the nano-optics of X-ray waveguides is developed. On the other hand, first experiments are presented in which Mössbauer isotopes were embedded within X-ray waveguides and excited with focused synchrotron radiation. Finally, a Young's double-slit experiment on the nanometer scale is shown (after Thomas Young, who received his doctorate in Göttingen in 1796), with which the resonant phase shift of atomic nuclei can be precisely measured. These represent important steps towards the manipulation of x-ray light on the nanometer scale.
Keywords: x-ray optics; waveguides; Mössbauer effect; synchrotron radiation; waveguide quantum electrodynamics; nuclear resonant scattering; resonant pulse propagation

German

Hard X-rays generally only interact very weakly with matter, so that tissue, for example, is quite transparent to them. However, this makes the controlled manipulation of X-ray light particularly challenging. While many functionalities for visible and infrared light can nowadays be accommodated in integrated optical components on a microscopic scale on semiconductor substrates, macroscopic crystal optics are usually still required for X-ray light, despite the substantially smaller wavelength. Yet, similar to fiber optics for visible light, X-ray waveguides can guide X-ray light, whereby it is confined in one or two dimensions to a length scale of just a few 10 nm. This dissertation deals fundamentally with X-ray waveguides and the interaction of X-ray light with resonant quantum emitters within them. In particular, Mössbauer isotopes such as iron-57 are considered, whose atomic nuclei have very long-lived metastable states that can be excited with X-rays. On the one hand, a comprehensive theory of the nano-optics of X-ray waveguides is developed. On the other hand, first experiments are presented in which Mössbauer isotopes were embedded within X-ray waveguides and excited with focused synchrotron radiation. Finally, a Young's double-slit experiment on the nanometer scale is shown (after Thomas Young, who received his doctorate in Göttingen in 1796), with which the resonant phase shift of atomic nuclei can be precisely measured. These represent important steps towards the manipulation of x-ray light on the nanometer scale.
 
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