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Collective Nuclear Excitation and Pulse Propagation in Single-Mode X-Ray Waveguides

Leon M. Lohse1,2,3,*, Petar Andrejić4, Sven Velten2,3, Malte Vassholz1, Charlotte Neuhaus1, Ankita Negi2,3, Anjali Panchwanee3, Ilya Sergeev3, Adriana Pálffy5 et al.

Tim Salditt1 and Ralf Röhlsberger6,7,8,2,3

  • *Contact author: llohse@uni-goettingen.de
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 053601 – Published 30 July, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/r2hf-9qn9

Abstract

Waveguides offer a means to controllably couple atomic ensembles to the electromagnetic field therein. Here, we demonstrate x-ray propagation in planar thin-film waveguides coupled to Mössbauer nuclei under collective resonant excitation by short pulses of synchrotron radiation. We record x-ray photons that have been emitted into resonant modes of the waveguide. Depending on the geometry and mode of excitation, two fundamentally different signatures of the collective emission are observed, for which we present a unifying theoretical model. Our results form a new platform for waveguide quantum electrodynamics in the hard x-ray regime with the potential to provide a coherent narrow band source of x-rays on the nanometer scale.

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 053601– Published 30 July, 2025
  • Received 2 March 2024
  • Revised 16 April 2025
  • Accepted 27 June 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

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