Detailed Program of the Lectures

History of X-rays physics and of the study of matter properties; excursus of the main scientific results obtained in the twentieth century based on experimental investigations exploiting X-rays; introduction to synchrotron radiation and free electron lasers; IR, visible, UV and X light.

Radiation sources, stimulus and response fileds, differentil cross section, Thomson scattering for a free electron, classic radius of an electron.

Quantomechanical description of the Thomson scattering process, quantization of the field, form factor, scattering by free and bound electrons, semiclassical atomic scattering, atomic form factor. Form factors for atoms, molecules and crystals, elastic and inelastic scattering, Compton scattering, wave equation and refraction index for X-rays, dispersion corrections, absorption coefficient, phase shifts.

Reflectivity and transmittivity for X-rays, total external reflection, critical angle, Brewster angle, refraction, penetration length, evanescent waves, expressions as a function of the dispersion corrections.

Kramers-Kronig relations, Fresnel equations and transferred moments for X-rays, reflectivity of a homogeneous film, multi-layer optics, Kiessig oscillations, examples and applications of X-ray and UV optics, reflectivity measurements.

Synchrotron light, third and fourth generation machines, beamlines, insertion devices, radiofrequency cavities; radiation from a bending magnet, emission spectrum and and critical energy.

Undulator equation, deflection parameter, radiation cone, searchlight effect, emission spectrum, harmonics, energy resolution.

Central radiation cone and emitted power, spectral brilliance, bandwidth, non-monochromaticity. Wigglers, higher-harmonics of an undulator, bandwidth, harmonic merging, critic harmonic number; layout of a beamline, front end, BPMs, beam definign aperture, optics, mirrors, monochromators, detectors.

Introduction to coherence: auto and mutual coherence, partial degree of coherence, spatial and temporal coherence, longitudinal and transverse coherence, coherence volume, radiation filtering, beamline efficiency.

Van Cittert - Zernicke theorem, coherence volume and photon degeneracy; fourth generation machines, SASE process, Pierce parameter.

Electron tajectories in an undulator, interaction with the irradiated electric field, pendulum equations, natural focusing, FODO, seeding techniques, FERMI@Elettra.

Imaging techniques with synchrotron light, Fraunhofer, Fresnel and contact regimes; contrast and index of refraction; tomography, Radon transform and Fourier slice theorem; scanning and full-field microscopy, Fresnel zone plate.

Fourier analysis of the Fourier zone plate; absorption and phase contrast, fluorescence, water window, microtomography; worked examples.

X-ray microscopy and tomography in biology and medicine; vibrational IR spectromicroscopy, non-linear vibronic spectroscopy.

Vibronic SFG spectroscopy, double-resonance SFG, pump-probe SFG; X-ray spectromicroscopy, SPEM, PEEM, X-PEEM, LEEM.

Coherent lensless imaging, speckle patterns; scattering amplitude and intensity, rotational averaging, scattering by liquids, radial distribution function, structure factors for liquids and glasses.

Small-angle X-ray scattering, Guinier and Porod regimes, radius of gyration; introduction to the phase problem, resonant scattering, dispersion corrections and Friedel pairs.

Spectroscopy, diffraction and resonances; direct and indirect RIXS; diffraction and dispersion corrections: the MAD method, examples.

X-ray diffraction and determination of the structure of DNA; historic excursus; X-ray diffraction by powders, Debye-Scherrer cones; surface diffraction: crystal truncation rods; examples of SXRD investigations exploiting synchrotron light.

Introduction to NEXAFS; core-level spectroscopy with time resolution, examples of chemical reactions and segregation processes.

SFG pump-probe spectroscopy; pump-probe spectroscopy with free electron lasers, time resolved XAS and XES, electronic and phononic characteristic excitation lifetimes; transient grating and four-wave mixing; transients in reflectivity and refraction index; macromolecular lensless imaging; photoelectron holography.