Table-top soft X-ray absorption spectroscopy based on high average/peak power femtosecond laser

1895年威廉·伦琴博士发现了X射线，这是上个世纪取得重大突破的重要一步。在医学上，这为医生提供了独特的诊断和治疗工具，对我们的社会产生了重大影响。在科学研究中，X射线用于原子、分子、生物结构和材料的光谱和结构表征。今天，来自不同科学领域的研究人员，包括生物学家、化学家和物理学家，预计将使用X射线激光脉冲来探测具有高空间和高时间分辨率的动力学过程。这一探索推动了在世界各地建造X射线自由电子激光(XFEL)设施，提供高亮度的飞秒X射线激光脉冲。这种设施的缺点是，除了其数十亿欧元的巨额财政投资外，其可获得性有限，从而限制了可以进行的实验数量。

The discovery of X-rays in 1895 by Dr. William Roentgen has been an important step towards major breakthroughs in the last century. In medicine, this has had a major impact on our society by providing physicians with unique tools for diagnostics and treatments. In scientific research, X-rays are used for spectroscopic and structural characterization of atoms, molecules, biological structures and materials. Today, researchers from a broad diversity of scientific horizons, including biologists, chemists and physicists, are anticipating using X-ray laser pulses to probe dynamical processes with combined high spatial and high temporal resolutions. This quest motivates the construction of X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL) facilities around the world providing femtosecond X-ray laser pulses of high brilliance. The drawback of such facility, on top of its huge financial investment of billions of Euros, is its limited availability thus restraining the number of experiments that can be performed.