Probing Transient Structures of Nanoparticles by Single-Particle X-Ray Diffraction

We report on our recent experimental results of single-shot and single-particle X-ray diffraction of rare-gas nanoparti- cles at SACLA. The single-shot diffraction data provided insights into the crystallization kinetics of Xe nanoparticles, where the nanoparticles initially crystallize in the metastable stacking-disordered phase and then transform into the stable face-centered cubic phase. In addition, we investigated the ultrafast structural dynamics of nanoplasma induced by an intense near-infrared laser pulse. We found a relation be- tween the timescale of structural disordering and the speed of ejected ions from nanoplasma. We demonstrate the ef- fectiveness of single-particle diffraction for investigating non-equilibrium structural dynamics at the nanoscale.