Small-angle pump–probe studies of photoexcited nanoparticles

X-ray scattering experiments on femtosecond laser-excited gold nanoparticle suspensions are presented. It is shown that the time-resolved pump-probe technique using the X-ray pulse structure at synchrotron sources is capable of resolving structural dynamics on the nanometer scale to high precision. The estimation of X-ray flux density allows the projection of experiments on an X-ray free-electron laser probing single nanoparticles in a one-shot exposure.