A setup for resonant inelastic soft x-ray scattering on liquids at free electron laser light sources

We present a flexible and compact experimental setup that combines an in vacuum liquid jet with an x-ray emission spectrometer to enable static and femtosecond time-resolved resonant inelastic soft x-ray scattering (RIXS) measurements from liquids at free electron laser (FEL) light sources. We demonstrate the feasibility of this type of experiments with the measurements performed at the Linac Coherent Light Source FEL facility. At the FEL we observed changes in the RIXS spectra at high peak fluences which currently sets a limit to maximum attainable count rate at FELs. The setup presented here opens up new possibilities to study the structure and dynamics in liquids. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4772685]