Nanoscale Ultrafast Lattice Modulation with Hard X-ray Free Electron Laser

Nanoscale Ultrafast Lattice Modulation with Hard X-ray Free Electron Laser | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Physical Sciences - Article Nanoscale Ultrafast Lattice Modulation with Hard X-ray Free Electron Laser Haoyuan Li, Nan Wang, Leon Zhang, Sanghoon Song, Yanwen Sun, May Ling Ng, and 21 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-6814136/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Published Journal Publication published 27 Jan, 2026 Read the published version in Nature Physics → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Understanding and controlling microscopic dynamics across spatial and temporal scales has driven major progress in science and technology over the past several decades. While ultrafast laser-based techniques have enabled probing nanoscale dynamics at their intrinsic temporal scales down to femto- and attoseconds, the long wavelengths of optical lasers have prevented the interrogation and manipulation of such dynamics with nanoscale spatial specificity. With advances in hard X-ray free electron lasers (FELs) [1–4], significant progress has been made developing X-ray transient grating (XTG) spectroscopy[5, 6], aiming at the coherent control of elementary excitations with nanoscale X-ray standing waves. So far, XTGs have been probed only at optical wavelengths [5, 6], thus intrinsically limiting the achievable periodicities to several hundreds of nanometers. By achieving sub-femtosecond synchronization of two hard X-ray pulses at a controlled crossing angle, we demonstrate the generation of an XTG with spatial periods of ∼ 10 nm. The XTG excitation drives a thermal grating that drives coherent monochromatic longitudinal acoustic phonons in the cubic perovskite, SrTiO3 (STO). With a third X-ray pulse with the same photon energy, time-and-momentum resolved measurement of the XTG-induced scattering intensity modulation provides evidence of ballistic thermal transport at nanometer scale in STO. These results highlight the great potential of XTG for studying high-wave-vector excitations and nanoscale transport in condensed matter, and establish XTG as a powerful platform for the coherent control and study of nanoscale dynamics. Physical sciences/Optics and photonics/Optical physics/X-rays Physical sciences/Optics and photonics/Optical physics/Nonlinear optics Physical sciences/Optics and photonics/Optical physics/Ultrafast photonics Sub-10 nm wavelength transient grating hard X-ray Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Supplementary Files SupplementaryInformation.pdf Supplementary Information Cite Share Download PDF Status: Published Journal Publication published 27 Jan, 2026 Read the published version in Nature Physics → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-6814136","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Physical Sciences - Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":471083995,"identity":"966355d0-cf25-4908-b223-255074549b18","order_by":0,"name":"Haoyuan 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