The time-resolved luminescence end station for studies of ultrafast relaxation processes under pulsed femtosecond X-rays at the FemtoMAX beamline

We present the time-resolved luminescence end station developed at the FemtoMAX beamline at the MAX IV Laboratory for the studies of ultrafast energy relaxation and emission properties. The instrument consists of a temperature-controlled vacuum chamber sample environment, in which the UV–visible luminescence is collected from the point of interaction of ultrashort x-ray pulses with luminescent material and directed to a monochromator equipped with an ultrafast MCP-PMT detector operating in a photon-counting mode. The instrumental response function of the setup, determined by the duration of x-ray pulses (50 fs), optical path, and fast MCP-PMT response, was measured to 32 ps (FWHM) within the spectral range of 200–700 nm. In this paper, we present the results obtained under different operational conditions on the basis of three well-known scintillating samples, demonstrating that this instrument development for the scintillator community has established the foundation for ultrafast luminescence studies at FemtoMAX.